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I*RlA€ETO]¥,  i%.  J. 

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1                          S  A  M  1 1  K  I.    A  O  N  K  W  , 

'                                                            y^                                           _^                                                            U  K       1'    l(  1    I.    \    Ll   K  I.   H    H    I    \  .      1'  \  . 

\       Letter        0  3-5 

BL  50  .F6  1828 
Foster,  John,  1770-1843. 
An  essay  on  the  importance  i 
of  considering  the  subject! 


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AN  ESSAY 


ON   THE    IMPORTANCE    OF    CONSIDERING    THE 


SUBJECT  OF  RELIGION, 


ADDRESSED  PARTICULARLY  TO  MEN  OF  EDUCATION. 


BY  JOHN  FOSTER, 

AUTHOR  OF  ESSAYS  ON  DECISION  OF  CHARACTER,  d&9. 


5e6ond  Amdrioan  Edilion. 


i5oston: 

0BLISHED  BY  CROCKER  6c  BREWSTER, 

No.  47,  Washington-Street, 

NEW  YORK:— JONATHAN  LEAVITT. 

182,  Broadwa/. 

1S28. 


ESSAY. 


There  are  more  ways  to  derive  instruction  from 
books,  than  the  direct  and  chief  one,  of  applying  the 
aJ.tention  to  what  they  contain.  Things  connected 
with  them,  by  natural  or  casual  association,  will 
sometimes  suggest  themselves  to  a  reflective  and 
imaginative  reader,  and  divert  him  into  secondary 
trains  of  ideas.  In  these  the  mind  may,  indeed, 
float  along  in  perfect  indolence,  and  acquire  no  good, 
but  a  serious  disposition  might  regulate  them  to  a 
profitable  result. 

Of  these  extraneous  ideas,  the  most  obviously 
occurring,  as  being  the  most  directly  associated  with 
the  book,  may  be  some  recollections  or  conjectures 
concerning  the  author.  Perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able circumstances  of  his  life,  and  qualities  of  his 
character,  are  well  known.  Some  of  these  may 
come  on  the  reader's  mind,  suspend  his  attention  to 
the  written  thoughts,  and  draw  him  away  into  medi- 
tation on  the  person,  perhaps  now  no  longer  on  earth, 
who  once  thought  them,  and  deliberately  put  them 
in  the  words  just  seen  on  the  page. 

And  the  reminiscences,  which  thus  bring  what  the 
author  was  into  conjunction  with  what  he  has  writ- 
1* 


THE    IMPORTANCE 


ten,  display  the  relation  between  them,  greatly  vary- 
ing  in  character   in   the   different   instances.     The 
book,  we  will  suppose,  teaches  genuine  wkdom,  and 
forcibly  inculcates  the  best  principles  ;  and  it  may  be 
that  the  author  is  remembered  or  recorded  to  have 
been  worthy  of  his  doctrine,  an  example  of  the  vir- 
tues of  which  we  are  admiring  him  as  the   advocate, 
and  one  of  the  excellent  of  the  earth.     In  this  case, 
we  have  a  pleasing  reflection  from  his  character  shed 
on  his  pages.     It  is  the  whole  man,  faithfully  affirm- 
ing to  us,  with  his  heart  and   life,  all  that  his  lan- 
guage expresses  in  testimony  to  truth  and  goodness. 
The  living  spirit  and  practice  of  the  man  have  left 
an  evidence  and  a  power  to  animate  these  sentences 
of  the  now  silent  instructer.     If,  at  his  happy  de- 
parture, his  "  works  followed  him,"  they   still  also 
follow   his   words.     And  thus  the   reader   feels  the 
benefit  of  that  principle  of  association,  by  which  his 
thoughts,  at  some  moments,  pass   from  the  writing  to 
the  author. 

But  a  very  different  case  is  too  possible,  in  which 
a  dark  haunting  of  the  author's  memory  shall  at 
times  cast  a  shade  over  sentences  bright  witli  intelli- 
gence, strong  in  the  assertion,  perhaps  in  the  vindi- 
cation, of  important  principles  of  truth  and  virtue, 
and  expressed  with  all  the  appearance  of  sincere 
respect  for  them.  The  idea  of  him  may  intervene 
with  the  effect  of  a  counteracting  malignant  genius, 
to  blast  the  fairest,  and  enervate  the  strongest,  forms 
of  thought  which  he  has  presented  to  please  and  in- 
struct us.     They  cannot   speak   to  us  without  our 


OF    RELIGION.  7 

seeming  to  hear  an  under  voice,  as  if  mocking  the 
attention  and  complacency  which  we  were  beginning 
to  give  to  them.     There  may  have  been  left  such 
memorials  of  the  author's  character,  as  to  force  upon 
us  a  doubt  whether  he  was  honest  in  what  he  wrote  ; 
whether  the  principles  which  he  displayed  so  much 
ability  in  maintaining  were  his  own  sincere  convic- 
tions.    Or,   where  there  may  not   be  cause  for  so 
grave  a  suspicion,  it  may  be  too  probable  or  evident 
that  his  exertions  were  applied  in    a  mere  profes- 
sional  capacity,  on  a  calculation  of  distinction  and 
advancement,   and  without  any  cordial  sense   of  the 
value  of  truth.     Or,  while    we   may  be  convinced 
that  we  are  reading  the  honest  dictates  of  his  judg- 
ment, and   that   he  did   really  feel,   at   the  time   of 
writing,  a  concern  about  their  application  to  his  own 
conduct,   v^e  may  have    the  mortification    to  know 
that  the  tenor  of  his  life,  or  many  circumstances  in 
it,  were   in  melancholy  contrariety  to    his  book.     It 
is  even  related  of  a  man    of  genius,  of  dissipated 
habits,  that  he  published  a  book   of  piety,  written  by 
him  in  perfect  good  faith,  and  for  the  very  purpose 
of  imposing  a,  restraint  on  his  own  follies  and  vices, 
by  this  expedient  of  combining  with  the  testimony 
of  his  conscience,   a  formal  pledge  to  the  public, — 
and  that  he  did  it  in  vain. 

This  dark  obtrusion  of  the  author's  character 
may  tend,  in  its  immediate  elTect,  to  lessen  the  force 
of  the  sentiments  and  arguments  by  which  he  seemed 
to  be  training  us  to  right  judgment  and  practice. 
If  a  man  who  could  think  with   such   clear   intelli- 


b  TUE    IMPORTANCE 

gence,  could  reason  so  convincingly,  could  estimate 
the   quality   of  things,  as  it  would  appear  to  us,  so 
impartially  and  justly,  and  could  advise  and  inculcate 
with  such  gravity,  and  semblance   of  being  in  earn- 
est,— if  such    a   man   might,   nevertheless,  be  even 
sceptical  respecting   the  very   principles  which   he 
seems   to   prove,    or   might,   while    believing   them, 
maintain  them    with  no  better  intention  than  that  of 
making  a  display  of  his  ability,  in  order  to  advance 
himself  in    fame    or   lucre,    or   might    feel  a  sincere 
esteem  for  the  truths  and  precepts  which  he  taught, 
and  yet  allow  himself  to  act  in  flagrant  violation  of 
them, — can   there  be   any  real    authority,    any  solid 
importance,  in  the  instructions  we  are  receiving  from 
his   book  ?     But   this   inauspicious   relation   of  the 
author  to  his  writings  may  turn  to  the  reader's  bene- 
fit, if  he  will  be  quite  serious.     It  wiil  force  on  his 
view   another  exposure  and  exemplification    of  the 
sad  disorder  into  which  our  nature  has  fallen ;  it  will 
show  him  of  how  little  avail  is  a  mere  intellectual 
exercise    of  the  mind  on  important   truth  ;  and  how 
much  more  is  indispensable  to  the  salutary  effect  of 
right  principles,  than  a  bare  assent  of  the  judgment, 
however   decided.     It  will   admonish   him  that  the 
efficacy  of  truth  depends  on  a  habitual  communica- 
tion  of  the  soul  with  the  God  of  truth.     He  has  the 
author  revisiting   him,   as    from  the  dead,  to  apprize 
him  by  example,  that  truths  the  most  important  may 
pass  in  the  train  of  his  thoughts,  or  may  be  retained 
in  his  judgment   as  his  fixed  opinions,  all  in  vain, 
unless  they  be  brought  and  kept  in  contact  with  his 


OF    RELIGION. 


conscience,  and  his  conscience  be  kept  habitually 
reverent  to  the  Supreme  Authority.  And  shall  our 
Lord's  declaration  respecting  a  real  intervention  of 
one  from  the  departed  be  verified  in  this  case  too  ; 
so  that  it  shall  be  entirely  unavailing  for  this  gloomy 
apparition  to  the  readers's  mind,  to  warn  him  against 
trifling  with  the  serious  instructions  in  the  book,  as 
he  that  wrote  them  had  trifled,  and  adding  one  more 
to  the  number  of  those  who  have  deliberately  gone 
the  way  to  ruin,  bearing  a  lamp  lighted  by  heaven  in 
their  hand  ? 

This  representation  of  the  secondary  advantage 
derivable  from  books,  supposes  them  to  be  read. 
But,  even  in  the  most  cursory  notice  of  them,  when 
the  attention  is  engaged  by  no  one  in  particular, 
ideas  may  be  started  of  a  tendency  not  wholly  for- 
eign to  instruction.  A  reflective  person,  in  his 
library,  in  some  hour  of  intermitted  application,  when 
the  mind  is  surrendered  to  vagrant  musing,  may 
glance  along  the  ranges  of  volumes,  with  a  slight  re- 
cognition of  the  authors,  in  long  miscellaneous  array 
of  ancients  and  moderns.  And  that  musing  may 
become  shaped  into  ideas  like  these  :  What  a  num- 
ber of  our  busy  race  have  deemed  themselves  capa- 
ble of  informing  and  directing  the  rest  of  mankind. 
How  many  who  were  powerful  in  thought,  or  labori- 
ous in  research,  have  had  their  brief  season  under 
the  sun,  have  attained  their  respective  shares  of  in- 
fluence and  fame,  and  are  now  no  longer  on  earth  ! 
What  a  vast  amount  is  collected  here  of  the  results 
of  the  most  strenuous  and  protracted  exertions  of  so 


10  THE    IMPORTANCE 

many  minds  !  What  were,  in  each  of  these  claim- 
ants that  the  world  should  think  as  they  did,  the 
most  prevailing  motives  f  How  many  of  them  sin- 
cerely loved  truth,  honestly  sought  it,  and  faithfully, 
to  the  best  of  their  knowledge,  declared  it  ?  What 
might  be  the  circumstances  and  influences  which  de- 
termined, in  the  case  of  that  one  author,  and  the 
next,  and  the  next  again,  their  own  modes  of  opinion? 
How  many  of  them  were  aware,  and  acted  on  the 
conviction,  of  the  importance  of  a  devout  intercourse 
with  heaven,  in  order  to  their  being  truly  wise  them- 
selves, and  to  their  being  the  successful  teachers  of 
wisdom  f  How  many  of  them  were  actuated  by  a 
genuine  desire  to  benefit  their  fellow  mortals  ?  What 
may  be  conjectured  as  to  the  degree  of  complacency 
with  which  many  of  them  have  since,  in  a  state 
where  they  better  knew  the  truth  of  things,  and 
better  knew  themselves,  regarded  the  spirit  in  which 
they  speculated,  and  the  tendency  of  what  they  left 
to  speak  in  their  name  after  they  were  gone  ? 

And  how  much  have  they  actually  done  for  truth 
and  righteousness  in  the  world  ?  Do  not  the  con- 
tents of  these  accumulated  volumes  constitute  a 
chaos  of  all  discordant  and  contradictory  principles, 
theories,  representations  of  fact,  and  figurings  of 
imagination  ?  Could  I  not  instantly  place  beside 
each  other  the  works  of  two  noted  authors,  who 
maintain  for  truth  directly  opposite  doctrines,  or 
systems  of  doctrines  ;  and  then  add  a  third  book,* 
which  explodes  them  both  ?  I  can  take  some  one 
book,  in  which  the  prime  spirits  of  the  world,  through 


OF     RELIGION.  H 

all  time,  are  brought  together,  announcing  the 
speculations  which  they,  respectively,  proclaimed  to 
be  the  essence  of  all  wisdom,  protesting  with  solemn 
censure,  or  sneering  contempt,  against  the  dogmas 
and  theories  of  one  another,  and  conflicting  in  a 
huge  Babel  of  all  imaginable  opinions  and  vagaries."^ 
Within  these  assembled  volumes,  how  many  errors 
in  doctrine  may  there  not  be  maintained  ;  how  many 
bad  practical  principles  palliated,  justified,  or  dis- 
played in  seductive  exemplification  ;  how  many  good 
ones  endeavoured  to  be  supplanted  ;  how  many  ab- 
surdities and  vain  fancies  set  forth  in  plausible  col- 
ours !  Is  it  not  as  if  the  intellect  of  man  had  been 
surrendered  to  be  the  sport  of  some  malicious  and 
powerful  spiritual  agent,  who  could  delight  in  play- 
ing it  through  all  traverses,  freaks,  and  mazes  of 
fantastic  movement,  mocking  at  its  self-importance, 
diverted  at  its  follies,  gratified  most  of  all  when  it  is 
perverted  to  the  greatest  mischief;  and  malignantly 
providing  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  efl^ect  of  all 
this,  through  subsequent  time,  by  instigating  the 
ablest  of  the  minds  thus  sported  with,  to  keep  their 
own  perversions  in  operation  on  posterity  through 
the  instrumentality  of  their  books  ?  If  such  a  thing 
might  be  as  the  intervention  of  the  agency  of  a 
better  and  more  potent  intelligence,  to  cause,  by- 
one  instantaneous  action  on  all  those  books,  the 
obliteration  of  all   that  is   fallacious,    pernicious,  or 


For  example,  the  work  of  Brucker. 


12  THE    IMPORTANCE 

useless  in  them,  what  millions  of  pages  would  be 
blanched  in  our  crowded  libraries  ! 

The  man  who  is  supposed  to  be  thoughtfully 
passing  his  eye  over  a  large  array  of  books  may 
make  such  reflections,  without  being  guilty  of  arro- 
gance. It  is  not  supposed  that  he  can  be  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  contents  of  the  majority  of 
them,  or  that  he  is  assuming  to  be  the  infallible 
judge  how  much  might  justly  be  doomed  to  oblivion 
in  those  which  he  has  examined.  But  being  ap- 
prized, in  a  general  way,  of  the  qualities  of  a  large 
proportion  of  them  ;  having  learned  something  of  the 
characters  of  many  of  the  authors  :  and  to  what 
class,  or  party,  or  school,  to  what  faith,  or  in  some 
instances  no  faith,  to  what  prevailing  system  of  an 
age  or  nation,  or  to  what  singularities  of  opinion 
they  were  severally  addicted,  he  necessarily  knows 
that  the  multifarious  collection  contains  innumerable 
things  at  variance  with  intellectual  and  moral  recti- 
tude. He  knows,  that  if  each  author  had  one  living 
disciple  wholly  obsequious  to  him,  and  if  all  these 
disciples  could  be  brought  together,  there  would  be 
a  company  in  which  almost  every  error  of  the  hu- 
man understanding,  and  every  wrong  disposition  and 
practice,  would  have  an  advocate. 

Such  ideas,  arising  in  the  exterior  survey  of  the 
works  of  so  many  intellects,  may  yield  some  instruc- 
tion to  a  reflective  man.  While  the  swarm  of  no- 
tions and  conceits  of  fancy  comes  upon  his  mental 
sight  thick  and  tumultuous,  and  as  lawlessly  capri- 
cious in  their  shapes  as  the  imps  figured  as  throng- 


OF    RELIGION.  13 

ing  about   the   magician,  he  may    reflect   what  the 
reason   of  man,  which  should  have  been   the  light 
and  glory  of  such  a  creature  of  God,  has  become, 
and  become  capable  of  producing,  through  some  dis- 
astrous lapse  into  disorder.     He  may  consider  what 
the  rational    faculty  has  been,  and  would  ever  be,  in 
the  absence   of   divine   revelation ;    and    also   what 
necessity  there  is  for  a  corrective  and  regulating  in- 
fluence from  above    on  the  mind,  if,  notwithstanding 
that  revelation,   it   can  have  wantoned  into  so  many 
aberrations.     It  will   be   shown  him  under   what  ill 
omens  he  will  apply  himself  to  the  study  of  the  most 
important  subjects  without  simplicity  in  his  motives, 
and  a    concientious  care  of   the    procedure    of  his 
judgment.     He   may  think,    and   deplore  to   think, 
what  mischief  may  have  sprung  from  the  intellectual 
obliquity,  the  pride,  the  turpitude,    the  irreligion,  or 
even  the  carelessness,   of  one  mind   of  great  powers 
of  seduction.     He  may  be  mortified  to  see  how  folly 
can  link  itself  to  intelligence,  as  if  to    expose  it  to 
scorn,   wdiile  he  reflects  how  many  men  of  superior 
intellect,  who   therefore  ought  not  to  have  been  the 
dupes  of  a  phantasm,   have   been   impelled  to  the 
most  intense  exertion  by  the  passion  to  be  renowned 
in  this  world,  where  they   were  to   stay  so   short  a 
time — to  be  renowned  in  it,  even  after  they  should 
have  passed  away  beyond  the  possible  enjoyment  of 
their   fame :  and  a  sentiment  of  mingled  contempt 
and  pity  will  arise   at  the  failure   of  these  anticipa- 
tions in  the  case  of  some  of  them,  whose  earnest,  in- 
2 


14  THE    IMPORTANCE 

defatigable  labours  have  barely  preserved  their 
names  from  oblivion.  While  his  look  is  arrested  by 
the  works  of  some  of  those  of  highest  distinction, 
splendid  in  literary  achievement  and  lasting  fame,  it 
may  be  suggested  to  his  thoughts,  with  respect  to 
one  of  them,  and  another,  whether,  on  a  Christian 
estimate  of  things,  he  would  be  deliberately  willing, 
were  it  possible,  to  shine  in  all  that  splendour  in  his 
own  and  a  succeeding  age,  on  the  condition  of  being 
just  of  the  same  spirit  toward  God  and  the  best  in- 
terests of  mankind,  as  those  celebrated  men.  While 
pronouncing  their  names,  and  looking  at  these  vol- 
umes, in  which  they  have  left  a  representative  ex- 
istence on  earth,  left  the  form  and  action  of  tlieir 
minds  embodied  in  a  more  durable  vehicle  than  their 
once  animated  clay,  how  striking  to  think,  that  some- 
where, and  in  some  certain  condition,  they  them- 
selves are  existing  still  ;  existing  as  really  and  per- 
sonally as  when  they  were  revolving  the  thoughts 
and  writing  the  sentences  which  fill  these  books  ! 
From  the  character  of  these  images  of  their  minds, 
these  enshrined  statues,  created  to  receive  homage 
for  them  after  they  are  gone,  what  may  be  deemed 
of  their  present  condition  elsewhere  ?  The  musing 
of  our  contemplatist  may  at  times  be  led  to  solemn 
conjectures  at  the  award  which  these  great  intellec- 
tual performers  have  found  in  another  state  ;  and  he 
follows  some  of  them  with  a  very  dark  surmise. 

His  eye  may  rest  on  a  book  inscribed  with  a  name 
far  less  "  proudly  eminent"  in  the  honours  of  genius 
and  talent  ;  but  a  work  which   has  unquestionably 


OF    RELIGION.  15 

done  very  great,  and  almost  unmixed  good.  And 
he  may  be  reminded  of  that  sovereignty  of  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  world  in  his  selection  and  appointment, 
by  which,  minds  greatly  below  the  highest  order  of 
natural  ability  may  be  rendered  preeminent  in  use- 
fulness. It  may  also  occur  to  him,  diverting  for 
an  instant  from  all  the  ranks  and  varieties  of  those 
who  have  aspired  to  be  teachers  of  mankind,  to  re- 
flect how  many  humble  spirits,  that  never  attempted 
any  of  the  thousand  speculations,  nor  revelled  in  the 
literary  luxuries,  contained  in  these  books,  have 
nevertheless  passed  worthily  and  happily  through 
the  world,  into  a  region  where  it  may  be  the  ap- 
pointed result  and  reward  of  fervent  piety,  in  infe- 
rior faculties,  to  overtake,  by  one  mighty  bound,  the 
intellectual  magnitude  of  those  who  had  previously 
been  much  more  powerful  minds.  And  finally, 
when  he  has  such  evidence  that  this  world  has  been 
always  a  tenebrious  and  illusory  scene,  for  the  search 
after  truth  by  a  spiritual  nature  itself  weak,  pervert- 
ed, and  obscured,  he  may  surely  feel  some  aspira- 
tions awakened  toward  that  other  world,  where  the 
objects  of  intelligence  will  be  unveiled,  to  faculties 
rectified  and  nobly  enlarged  for  their  contemplation. 

Thus  far,  the  instructive  reflections  which  even 
the  mere  exterior  of  an  accumulation  of  books  may 
suggest,  are  supposed  to  occur  in  the  way  of  think- 
ing of  the  authors.  But  the  same  books  may  also 
excite  some  interesting  ideas,  through  their  less  ob- 
vious, but  not  altogether  fanciful,  association  with 


16  THE    IMPORTANCE 

the    persons  who   may  have   been    their   readers  or 
possessors.     The   mind   of  a  thoughtful    looker   over 
a  range   of  volumes,   of  many  dates,  and  a  consider- 
able proportion  of  them  old,  will  sometimes  be  led 
into  a  train    of  conjectural  questions : — Who  were 
they   that,    in   various  times  and    places,    have    had 
these    in    their   possession  ?     Perhaps    many    hands 
have  turned  over  the  leaves,  many  eyes  have  passed 
along  the  lines.     With  what  measure  of  intelligence, 
and   of  approval   or  dissent,  did    those    persons  re- 
spectively follow  the  train  of  thoughts?     How  many 
of  them  were   honestly  intent  on  becoming  wise  by 
what  they  read?     How  many  sincere  prayers  were 
addressed  by   them   to  the   Eternal  Wisdom  durins: 
the  perusal  ?     How  many  have  been  determined,   in 
their  judgment  or  their  actions,    by   these   books? 
What  emotions,  temptations,  or  painful  occurrences, 
may  have  interrupted  the  reading  of  this  book,  or 
of  that  ?     In  how  many  instances  may  a  reader  have 
shut  one  of  them,  to  indulge  in  a  folly  or  a  vice,  of 
wliich  that  very  book  had  warned  him  to  beware? 
Some  of  these   volumes  are  histories  of  the  life  and 
death  of  good   men  ;  how  many  readers  may  have 
proceeded  along   the  narrative,  approving   and  ad- 
miring ;  and,  envying  the  happy  termination  of  the 
course,   have  said,  "  Let   me  die   the   death  of  the 
righteous,"   and   nevertheless  have    pursued    a  con- 
trary course,  and  come   to  a  melancholy  end  ?  May 
not  some  one  of  these  books  be   the  last  that  some 
one  person  lived  to  read?    Many  that  have  perused 
them  are  dead  5  each  made  an  exit  in  a  manner  and 


OF    RELIGION.  ]7 

with  circumstances  of  its  own  ;  what  were  the  man- 
ner and  circumstances  in  each  instance  ?  It  was  a 
most  solemn  event  to  that  person  ;  but  how  ignorant 
concerning  it  am  I,  who  now  perhaps  have  my  eye 
on  the  book  which  he  read  the  last !  What  a  power 
of  association,  what  an  element  of  intense  signifi- 
cance, would  invest  some  of  these  volumes,  if  I 
could  have  a  momentary  vision  of  the  last  scene  of 
a  number  of  the  most  remarkable  of  their  former 
readers  !  Of  that  the  books  can  tell  me  nothing ; 
but  let  me  endeavour  to  bring  the  fact,  that  persons 
have  read  them  and  died,  to  bear  vv^ith  a  salutary  in- 
fluence on  my  own  mind  while  I  am  reading  any  of 
them.  Let  me  ciierish  that  temper  of  spirit  which 
is  sensible  of  intimations  of  what  is  departed,  re- 
maining and  mingling  with  what  is  present,  and  can 
thus  percieve  some  monitory  glimpses  of  even  the 
unknown  dead.  What  multiplied  traces  of  them, 
on  some  of  these  books,  are  perceptible  to  the  imag- 
ination, which  beholds  successive  countenances  long 
since  "  changed  and  sent  away,"  bent  in  attention 
over  the  pages  !  And  the  minds  which  looked  from 
within  through  those  countenances,  conversing  with 
the  thoughts  of  other  minds  perhaps  long  withdrawn, 
even  at  that  time,  from  among  men — what  and 
where  are  they  now  ?  Among  the  representations  of 
the  objects  of  faith,  contained  in  any  of  these  works, 
what  passages  may  they  be  which  approach  the 
nearest  to  a  description  of  that  condition  of  exist- 
ence  to   which  those  readers  were  transferred,  after 


18  THE    IMPORTANCE 

closing  the  book  for  the  last  time  ?  If  I  could  have 
a  sign,  when  I  happen  to  fall  on  some  page  dark 
with  portentous  images  of  the  evil  which  awaits  the 
impious  and  wicked,  that  a  certain  former  reader 
carelessly  and  presumptuously  dared  the  experiment, 
and  has  found  a  reality  corresponding  to  those  men- 
aces,  but  more  tremendous ;  or  a  sign,  when  I  am 
reading  sentences  animated  with  noble  and  delight- 
ful ideas  of  the  fehcity  which  awaits  the  faithful, 
that  a  certain  preceeding  reader,  (and  suppose  him 
signified  by  name,)  is  now  in  the  experience  of  a 
fact,  true  in  principle  to  these  anticipations,  but  far 
transcending  in  degree,  how  powerfully  should  I  be 
arrested  at  those  passages,  as  if  I  were  come  to  an 
opening  from  the  invisible  world,  through  which  I 
could  hear  "  sounds  of  lamentation  and  woe,"  or 
songs  of  triumph,  from  the  identical  beings  who,  at 
a  certain  hour  in  the  past,  looked  on  these  lines  ! 
There  is  actually  a  person  telling  me,  that  he  looked 
once  on  these  very  descriptions,  these  emblems, 
which  are  at  this  moment  before  my  sight,  and  that 
he,  the  same  person,  is,  at  this  time  that  I  am  look- 
ing at  them,  overwhelmed  or  enraptured  by  the  real- 
ity. But  I,  that  am  come  after  him,  to  read  these 
representations  now,  do  I  solemnly  consider  tliat  I 
am  myself  making  my  election  of  the  yet  unseen 
good  or  evil,  and  that  very  soon  I  shall  leave  the 
books  in  my  turn,  and  arrive  at  the  consequence  ? 

Sometimes  the  conjectural  reference  to  the  former 
possessors  and  readers  of  books,  seems  to  be  ren- 
dered a  little  less  vague,  by  our  finding  at  the  be- 


OF  RELIGION.  19 

ginning  of  an  old  volume,  one  or  more  names  writ- 
ten, in  such  characters,  and  perhaps  accompanied 
with  such  dates,  that  we  are  assured  those  persons 
must  long  since  have  done  with  all  books.  The 
name  is  generally  all  we  can  know  of  him  who  in- 
serted it ;  but  we  can  thus  fix  on  an  individual  as 
actually  having  possessed  this  volume ;  and  perhaps 
there  are  here  and  there  certain  marks  which  should 
indicate  an  attentive  perusal.  What  manner  of  per- 
son was  he  ?  What  did  he  think  of  the  sentimentSa 
the  passages,  which  [  see  that  he  particularly  no- 
ticed ?  If  there  be  opinions  here  which  I  cannot 
admit,  did  he  believe  them  ?  If  there  be  counsels 
here  which  I  deem  most  just  and  important,  did  they 
afFectually  persuade  him  ?  Was  his  conscience,  at 
some  of  these  passages,  disturbed  or  calm  ?  In 
what  manner  did  he  converse  on  these  subjects  with 
his  associates  f  What  were  the  most  marked  fea- 
tures of  his  character,  what  the  most  considerable 
circumstances  of  his  life,  in  what  spirit  and  expec- 
tations did  he  approach  and  reach  its  close  ?  The 
book  is  perhaps  such  a  one  as  he  could  not  read, 
without  being  cogently  admonished  that  he  was  go- 
ing to  his  great  account;  he  went  to  that  account, 
how  did  he  meet  and  pass  through  it  ?  This  is  no 
vain  reverie.  He,  the  man  who  bore  and  wrote  this 
name,  did  go,  at  a  particular  time,  though  unrecord- 
ed, to  surrender  himself  to  his  Judge.  But  1,  who 
handle  the  book  that  was  his,  and  observe  his  name, 
and  am  thus  directing  my  thoughts  into  the  dark 
after  the  man,  I  also  am  in  progress  toward  the  same 


20  THE    IMPORTANCE 

tribunal,  when  it  will  be  proved,  to  my  joy  or  sor- 
row, whether  I  have  learned  true  wisdom  from  my 
books,  and  from  my  reflections  on  those  W'ho  have 
possessed  and  read  them  before. 

But  it  may  be,  that  the  observer's  eye  fixes  on  a 
volume  which  instantly  recalls  to  his  mind  a  person 
whom  he  well  knew  ;  a  revered  parent  perhaps,  or 
a  valued  friend,  w^ho  is  recollected  to  have  approved 
and  inculcated  the  principles  of  the  book,  or  perhaps 
to  have  given  it  to  the  person  who  is  now  looking  at 
it,  as  a  token  of  regard,  or  an  inoffensive  expedient 
for  drawing  attention  to  an  important  subject.  He 
may  have  the  image  of  that  relative  or  friend,  as  in 
the  employment  of  reading  that  volume,  or  in  the 
act  of  presenting  it  to  him.  This  may  awaken  a 
train  of  remembrances  leading  away  from  any  rela- 
tion to  the  book,  and  possibly  of  salutary  tendency  ; 
but  also,  such  an  association  with  the  book  may 
have  an  effect,  whenever  he  shall  consult  it,  as  if  it 
were  the  departed  friend,  still  more  than  the  author, 
that  uttered  the  sentiments.  The  author  spoke  to 
any  one  indiffrently,  to  no  one  in  particular  ;  but 
the  sentiments  seem  to  be  specially  applied  to  me, 
when  they  come  in  this  connexion  with  the  memory 
of  one  who  was  my  friend.  Thus  he  would  have 
spoken  to  me,  thus,  in  effect,  he  does  speak  to  me, 
while  I  think  of  him  as  having  read  the  book,  and 
regarded  it  as  particularly  adapted  to  me  ;  or  seem 
to  behold  him,  as  when  reading  it  in  my  hearing,  and 
sometimes  looking  off*  from  the  page  to  make  a  gen- 
tle enforcement  of  the  instruction.     He  would  have 


OF    RELIGION.  21 

been  happy  to  anticipate  that,  whenever  I  might  look 
into  it,  my  remembrance  of  him  would  infuse  a  more 
touching  significance,  a  more  applying  principal,  into 
its  important  sentiments  ;  thus  retaining  him,  though 
invisibly,  and  without  his  actual  presence,  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  beneficent  influence.  But  indeed  I  can-, 
at  some  moments,  indulge  my  mind  to  imagine 
something  more  than  this  mere  ideal  intervention  to 
reinforce  the  impression  of  truth  upon  me ;  inso- 
much that,  supposing  it  were  permitted  to  receive 
intimations  from  those  who  have  left  the  world,  it 
will  seem  to  me  possible  that  I  might,  when  looking 
into  some  parts  of  that  book,  in  a  solitary  hour  of 
night,  percieve  myself  to  be  once  more  the  object 
of  his  attention,  signified  by  a  mysterious  whisper 
from  no  visible  form  ;  or  by  a  momentary  preternat- 
ural luminousness  pervading  the  lines,  to  intimate 
tliat  a  friendly  intellioence,  that  does  not  forget  me, 
would  still  and  again  enforce  on  my  conscience  the 
dictates  of  piety  and  wisdom  which  I  am  reading. 
And  shall  it  be  as  nothing  to  me,  for  effectual  im- 
pression, that  both  my  memory  recalls  the  friend  as 
when  living,  in  aid  of  these  instructions,  and  that 
my  imagination,  without  any  discord  with  my  reason, 
apprehends  him,  when  now  under  a  mightier  mani- 
festation of  truth,  as  still  animated  with  a  spirit  which 
would,  if  that  were  consistent  with  the  laws  of  the 
higher  economy,  convey  to  me  yet  again  the  same 
testimony  and  injunctions  ?  Is  all  influential  rela- 
tion dissolved  by  the  withdrawment  from  mortal  in- 
tercourse ;  so  that  let  my  friends  die,  and  I  am  as 


22  THE    IMPORTANCE 

loose  from  their  hold  upon  me  as  if  they  had  ceased 
to  exist,  or  even  never  had  existed  ? 

In  this  slight  exemplification   of  the  manner  in 
which   the   sight   of  an   assemblage    of  books   may 
awaken  serious  reflection,  by  recalling   to  our  view 
the  persons  who  are  imagined  or  known  to  have  pos- 
sessed or  read  them,  we  are  supposing  the  associa- 
tion confined   to  the  particular  volumes  on  the  spot. 
Any    attempt  at    widening  the  scope  of  reflection, 
toward  the  whole   extent  of  all  the  editions  and  co- 
pies   of   each  book,    ^vould    confuse    and  dissipate 
the  meditation    in  a  multiplicity  inconceivable  and 
endless.     Think  of  any  one  book  that  has  been  long 
and   extensively    circulated  ; — suppose  Doddridge's 
Rise  and   Progress  of  Religion   in    the    Soul.     The 
immense  number  of   impressions  have  engaged  the 
attention,  less  or  more,  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
persons.     Each  of  those  copies  has  had  its  own  par- 
ticular destination,  and  many   of  them  have,  doubt- 
less, been  attended  with  remarkable  circumstances, 
though  to  us  unknown.     If  some   of  the  most  mem- 
orable  could  be  brought  to  our  knowledge,  in  con- 
nexion with  the  individual  and  still  existing  copies 
which  they  befell,  what  an  interest  would  be  attach- 
ed to  those  books,  bearing  such  memorials  of  the 
past !  Imagine  by  what   a   strange  diversity  of  per- 
sons, as  to  disposition,  mental  endowment,  conduct, 
age  ;    in  what  a  variety    of  situations,  under  how 
many    peculiar    conjunctures    of   occurrence  ;    and 
with  what  dissimilar  impressions  and  results,  the  book 


OF  RELIGION.  23 

has  been  perused  or  noticed  !  It  is  striking,  to  a 
degree  even  awful,  to  reflect  what  such  a  book  must 
have  done  ;  to  how  many  it  may  have  imparted 
thoughts  new  and  affecting,  and  which  nothing  could 
expel ;  how  many  it  may  have  been  made  the  mean 
of  leading  into  a  happy  life,  and  to  a  happy  end  ;  how 
many  it  has  arrested,  disturbed,  and  warned,  whom 
it  could  not  persuade ;  of  how  many  it  has  aggra- 
vated the  responsibility,  more  than  influenced  the 
conduct.  So  great  a  number  and  diversity  of  ac- 
countable beings,  unknown,  for  the  most  part,  to  one 
another,  scattered  here  and  there,  over  more  than 
one  country,  and  over  a  space  of  time  approaching 
to  a  century,  have  come  into  some  certain  relation 
to  this  one  book  !  Among  them,  many  a  single  in- 
stance might,  if  the  case  could  be  fully  brought  to 
our  knowledge,  exhibit  a  remarkable  history  of  a 
train  of  thought  and  emotion,  of  determination  and 
practical  result;  possibly  including  singular  inci- 
dents, opportune  and  auspicious,  or  of  disastrous 
influence.  And  who  shall  presume  to  cast  any 
thought  toward  an  assignable  duration  of  the  effect 
resulting  to  so  many  persons,  from  their  attention 
having  fallen  on  this  work,  when  that  effect  is  gone, 
or  is  to  go,  into  the  interests  of  eternity?  Let  the 
idea  of  its  unknown  prolongation  be  combined  with 
that  of  the  number  of  beings  experiencing  it,  and 
it  would  be  no  extravagant  fantasy,  to  believe,  that 
the  pious  author  may  find  it  one  of  the  amazements 
of  his  future  enlarging  knowledge,  to  have  a  mani- 
festation in  some  way  unfolding  itself  to  him,  of  even 


24  THE  IMPORTANCE. 

a    minor    part    of  the    consequences    of   what    he 
wrote. 

It  is  but  a  diminutive  portion  of  what  must  have 
happened  to  the  book,  in  relation  to  its  former  read- 
ers, and  transient  inspectors,  that  we  can  bring 
within  the  view  of  our  mind,  with  any  distinctness 
of  apprehension.  But  it  is  easy  to  represent  to 
ourselves  a  kw  instances  of  so  general  a  descrip-. 
lion,  that  it  must  be  certain  there  have  been  many 
such.  And  we  may  perhaps  be  indulged  in  the 
hope  of  inducing  somewhat  of  a  serious  and  favour- 
able predisposition,  in  some  one  or  other,  whose 
attention  may  hereafter  be  drawn  to  the  work,  by 
employing  the  remainder  of  this  Essay  in  specifying 
a  few  exemplifications  of  the  manner  of  reception 
and  attention,  which  the  book  may  be  imagined  to 
have  found,  with  persons  of  several  supposed  char- 
acters of  mind ;  and  suggesting,  in  each  case,  some 
of  the  appropriate  considerations.  We  would  wish 
to  fall  on  such  questions,  persuasives,  or  expostula- 
tions, as  might  have  been  pertinently  addressed,  and 
possibly  in  some  instances  were  addressed  to  the 
persons  so  described,  by  a  sensible  religious  friend  ; 
whose  character  we  may  be  allowed  to  personate^, 
in  representing  how  his  office  might  be  performed. 

It  would  be  of  little  use  to  expatiate  on  the  sup- 
position, (not  an  improbable  one,)  that  such  a  book 
may  casually,  at  one  time  or  another,  have  fallen 
under  the  transient  notice  of  a  decided  unbeliever 
in  revealed    religion  ;  an   unbeliever,  therefore,  in 


OF  RELIGION.  !iD 

effecl,  in  religion  altogether.  We  can  easily  con- 
ceive the  supercilious  air,  and  the  note  of  scorn,  at 
the  sight  of  what  cost  the  excellent  author  so  much 
earnest  labour,  with  the  most  pure  and  benevolent 
intention,  and  has  occupied  so  many  thousand  hours 
of  the  grave  attention  of  readers ;  what  has  been 
the  mean  of  awakening  many  thoughtless  spirits  to 
seriousness ;  what  has,  in  not  a  few  instances,  op- 
portunely occurred  to  decide  a  mind  wavering  in  the 
most  momentous  of  all  practical  questions ;  and 
what  has  by  many  been  gratefully  recollected,  near 
the  close  of  life,  as  having  greatly  contributed  to  the 
cause  of  its  closing  well.  He  could  not  be  unap- 
prized  of  such  things  belonging  to  its  history,  unless 
we  suppose  him  more  ignorant  of  the  extension  and 
effect  of  what  may  be  called  our  religious  literature, 
than  is  quite  consistent  with  the  character  of  a  well- 
informed  man,  which  we  may  be  sure  he  claimed. 
But  we  may  believe,  that  the  knowledge  of  this  did 
not  at  all  modify  the  tone  of  contempt,  in  which  he 
repeated  the  title  of  the  book,  to  give  it  a  new  turn  : 
"  Rise  and  Progress  of — delusion,  superstition, 
nonsense  !  Rise  of  an  ignis  faiiius,  from  fermenting 
ignorance,  to  glimmer  and  ramble  in  a  progress  to 
extinction  and  nothing  !"  And  he  was  elated  in  the 
self-complacency  of  being  so  much  more  wise  and 
fortunate  than  all  such  writers,  and  all  their  believ- 
ing readers. 

But  was  it   a   self-complacency    quite    entire    and 
unmingled,  or   which  could  be   maintained  in  steady 
3 


26  THE    IMPORTANCE 

uniform  tenor,  through  the  diversity  of  circumstan- 
ces, and  the  varying  moods  of  the  mind  ?  Let  us 
suppose  that,  soon  after  his  indulging  this  contempt 
of  the  book  and  its  subject,  some  grevious  occur- 
rence, or  even  the  mere  unexplained  fluctuation  of 
feeling,  reduced  him  for  a  while  to  a  somewhat  re- 
flective or  gloomy  temper;  and  that  just  then  one  of 
his  own  fraternity  turned  in  to  see  him,  and  happened 
to  catch  sight  of  the  same  book, — if  indeed  it  be  an 
admissible  supposition,  that  it  could  have  been  suf- 
fered to  remain  any  where  near  him.  We  may  im- 
aofine  the  visitant  to  recrard  the  book  with  the  same 
disposition  as  his  friend  ;  and  let  it  be  supposed,  that 
he  went  into  a  strain  of  congratulation  something 
like  the  following  :  What  a  noble  privilege  of  eleva- 
tion we  enjoy  over  those  silly  dupes  of  imposture 
and  superstition,  the  authors  of  these  works,  (such 
of  them  as  really  think  as  they  write,)  and  their  dis- 
ciples, who  gravely  and  honestly  believe  what  they 
read.  To  think  what  a  mighty  concern  these  sim- 
ple people  are  always  making  of  their  souls,  talking 
of  their  spiritual  nature,  their  immortal  principle, 
their  infinite  value  !  Whereas  we,  by  virtue  of  rea- 
son disenchanted  and  illuminated,  could  tell  them 
that  this  soul,  so  fondly  idolized,  so  ludicrously  ex- 
tolled, is  nothing  more  than  an  accident  of  corporeal 
organization,  and  necessarily  perishes  with  the  ma- 
terial frame — \yith  the  body,  as  they  call  it  in  con- 
tradistinction, and  speak  of  it  in  terms  of  compara- 
'  live  contempt,  as  if  they  possessed  something  in- 
comparably more  noble.     They   are    for   ever,   too, 


OF    RELiGlOxN'.  ^t 

referring  to  a  Supreme  Being,  with  whom  they  fancy 
they  are  standing  in  some  mysterious  and  sublime 
relation.  They  talk  of  his  favour,  his  providence, 
his  grace  ;  and  actually  imagine  they  can  hold  a 
direct  communication  with  him,  indulging  a  fantas- 
tic notion  of  some  special  good  to  be  obtained  from 
him  by  importunate  solicitation.  What  an  inflation 
of  vanity  !  to  fancy  that  such  a  being  (if  there  he 
such  a  one)  must  be  continually  thinking  of  them  ; 
that  he  should  care  about  their  dispositions  and  de- 
portment toward  him  ;  and  that  they  can  attract  his 
special  attention,  and  constrain  him  to  give  peculiar 
tokens  of  his  favour.  And  what  a  wretched  bond- 
age of  superstition,  to  be,  at  every  step,  in  every 
practical  question,  with  respect  to  every  inclination 
and  emotion,  and  with  the  sacrifice  of  whatever  their 
own  immediate  interest  may  plead,  under  the  con- 
straint of  an  imaginary  obligation  to  consult  the  will 
of  some  invisible  and  unknown  authority  !  Our 
privilege  of  sounder  reason  reduces  and  restores  us 
to  ourselves,  from  all  such  visionary  amplitude  of 
relations  ;  and  exempts  us  from  all  the  vain  solici- 
tudes and  distractions  of  an  unremitting  endeavour 
to  live  in  consistency  with  them.  It  is  enough  that 
we  hold  our  transient  being  under  certain  laws  of 
nature,  fixed  in  the  system  of  the  world,  to  which 
it  is  more  easy  to  submit,  than  to  the  will  and  con- 
tinual interference  of  a  formal  and  foreign  authority. 
Our  subjection  to  these  laws  we  cannot  help,  but  are 
happy  to  take  our  destiny  under  it,  with  the  free 
allowance  to  follow  our^  own  inclinations  as  far  as  we 


28  THE    IMPORTANCE 

can.  If  there  be  an  Almighty  Power,  we  may  well 
believe  he  has  other  affairs  to  mind,  than  that  of 
interfering  with  us  while  we  are  minding  our  own. 

It  is  true,  these  deluded  people  are  persuaded 
that  he  has  made  an  express  communication  to  men, 
declaring  the  relations  in  which  they  stand,  and  an- 
nouncing his  will.  And  indeed  it  must  be  confess- 
ed to  be  quite  miraculous,  that  so  many  things  con- 
cur to  make  a  semblance  of  evidence  that  there  has 
been  such  a  communication.  But  let  us  not  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  matter  :  it  is  absurd  to  imagine 
there  can  have  been  any  such  anomaly  in  the  course 
of  things,  any  such  arbitrary  substitution  for  the 
dictates  of  our  reason  :  our  license  of  acting  as  we 
desire,  would  be  surrendered  in  believing  it ;  and 
we  will  not  believe  it. 

To  crown  the  whole  set  of  delusions  which  these 
people  call  their  faith,  they  are  actually  persuaded 
that  there  remains  for  men  a  conscious  existence 
after  death  ;  a  perpetual  existence,  they  say,  in  a 
state  bearing  a  retributive  relation  to  what  they  shall 
have  been  in  this  life.  Ai>d  they  are  elated  with 
the  hope,  and  vehemently  stimulated  to  exertions 
for  the  attainment,  of  an  eternal  felicity.  A  mag- 
nificient  dream,  certainly,  for  those  who  can  lay  their 
sober  senses  aside,  to  admit  the  illusion.  Nor  can 
we  deny,  that,  through  the  medium  of  such  a  notion, 
these  enthusiasts  have  a  view  of  death  vastly  differ- 
ent from  ours,  and  feel  an  augmented  interest  in 
their  existence,  as  they  approach  near  the  end  of 
what  they   are   calling  its   introductory  stage.     To 


OF    RELIGION.  29 

hear  them  talk,  one  would  think  they  had  received 
messengers  or  visions  from  another  world,  to  inform 
them  of  a  splendid  allotment  and  reception  already 
prepared  for  them  there,  and  of  friends  impatient 
for  their  arrival.  And  it  is  a  notorious  fact,  that,  on 
the  strength  of  such  a  presumption,  great  numbers 
of  the  devotees  to  this  faith  have  resigned  their  life 
with  exultation,  not  a  few  of  them  under  tortures 
inflicted  for  their  fidelity  to  this  their  superstition. 
Well,  the  delusion  and  the  existence  broke  up  to- 
gether. And  for  the  present  race  of  pious  fools, 
let  them  expend  their  cares,  their  passions,  their 
life,  their  very  souls,  upon  their  adored  fallacy ; 
while  we,  on  a  higher  ground,  can  be  amused  to  see 
them  led  on  by  a  phantom,  which  ere  long  will  mock 
at  their  sudden  fall,  one  after  another,  into  nothing. 
We  envy  them  not  the  ambitious  aspirings  which 
cheat  them  out  of  the  enjoyment  of  this  world, 
never,  assuredly,  to  repay  them  in  another.  If  we 
lose  any  thing  worth  calling  pleasure,  in  being  desti- 
tute of  that  hope  which  flatters  them  with  images  of 
a  happy  futurity,  we  have  an  ample  compensation  in 
the  riddance  of  that  fear  which  visits  even  some  of 
them,  in  their  gloomy  moments,  with  alarms  of  a 
miserable  one.  Besides,  a  happiness  of  such  a  na- 
ture as  they  dream  of,  would  be  little  congenial  with 
the  inclinations  which  actuate  us,  and  which  we 
have  neither  power  nor  desire  to  alter.  Our  wis- 
dom is,  to  make  the  most  that  we  can,  in  the  indul- 
gence of  these  inclinations,  of  the  world  that  we  are 
3* 


30  THE     IMPORTANCE 

in.  We  hope  in  a  good  fortune,  that  our  life  may  be 
long  and  prosperous  ;  and  if  any  thing  of  a  sombre 
hue  should  threaten  to  come  over  its  latter  stages, 
through  infirniities  and  the  evident  approach  of  its 
termination,  we  shall  have  the  resource  of  philosophy 
and  fate ;  and  may  find  some  remaining  amusements 
that  will  please  and  divert  us  to  the  last.  And 
when,  at  length,  we  are  forced  out  of  the  world  and 
existence,  we  shall  have  no  consciousness  of  our 
loss.  How  insensible,  happily  for  us,  we,  or  rather 
the  dust  that  once  composed  us,  will  be,  while  thou- 
sands of  deluded  creatures  will  be  occupied  with 
such  books  as  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Pveligion  in 
the  Soul,  and  with  the  gravest  earnestness  afflicting 
themselves  with  a  superstitious  discipline  for  the  at- 
tainment of  an  imaginary  heaven,  with  the  frequent 
intrusion  of  the  dread  of  an  equally  fictitious  hell. 

Now,  could  the  supposed  speaker,  without  plainly 
belying  the  matter,  have  made  out  the  case  for  con- 
gratulation in  terms  much  more  gratifying  than 
these  .'*  But  we  may  reasonably  doubt  whether  a 
strain  like  this,  expressed  in  a  confident  tone  of  su- 
perior wisdom,  but  so  palpably  betraying,  with  inad- 
vertent honesty,  the  sordid  and  disconsolate  charac- 
ter and  adjuncts  of  the  vaunted  privilege,  would  be 
listened  to  with  complacency,  during  the  depressed 
mood  of  the  scorner  of  the  religious  book,  religious 
persons,  and  religion  itself.  We  can  imagine  him 
saying.  Pray  suspend  your  song  of  triumph  and  dis- 
dain ;  it  has  to  me  a  raven  sound.  Are  we,  then, 
in  the  very  elation  of  our  pride,  in  plain  fact  thus 


OF    RELIGION.  31 

prostrate  on  the  earth  ?  Must  we  confess,  that  we 
hold  our  advantage  of  reason  disabused,  of  stronger 
and  freer  intelligence,  at  the  cost  of  admitting  so 
humiliating  an  estimate  of  our  being  and  destiny  ? 
Really,  we  are  in  danger  of  giving  these  people  that 
we  dispise,  occasion  to  indulge  contempt  or  pity 
in  their  turn.  I  could  almost  whish  that  I  were  un- 
der the  same  delusion. 

It  would  have  contributed  little  to  recover  him 
from  this  recoil  of  feeling,  if,  just  about  the  same 
time,  an  intelligent  religious  man  had  fallen  into  his 
company,  had  happened  to  learn  in  what  manner 
the  serious  book  and  its  subject  had  been  disposed 
of,  and  had  thrown  in  a  few  of  his  suggestions,  to 
re-inspirit  the  shrinking  arrogance  of  irreligion. — I 
am  rather  sorry,  (we  may  suppose  him  to  say,)  that 
a  book  like  that,  written  with  the  most  simple  and 
benevolent  desire  to  do  good,  by  a  man  who.  had 
deeply  studied  his  subject,  should  have  been  the 
object  of  a  contempt  which  I  should  have  thought 
full  as  justly  bestowed  on  some  of  those  productions, 
of  frivolous  quality,  or  dishonest  intention,  which  I 
believe  are  the  objects  of  your  favour.  However,  a 
work  which  has  engaged  the  most  serious  attention, 
and  powerfully  operated  on  the  character,  of  multi- 
tudes, and  will  do  so  of  multitudes  more,  can  af- 
ford to  incur  your  passing  glance  and  expressions  of 
disdain.  And  the  subject  of  the  book,  religion,  can 
afford  it  too — that  religion,  which  has  sustained  the 
severest  examination,  and  secured  the  conviction, 
and  animated  the  virtues  in  life,  and  hopes  in  death, 


32  THK    IMPORTANCE 

of  many  of  the  strongest,  noblest  minds,  who  have 
bequeathed  to  its  glory  all  that  was  illustrious  in  hu- 
manity. So  honoured,  what  can  it  lose,  think  you, 
of  its  dignity  and  venerableness,  by  the  refusal  of 
your  homage  ?  It  can,  I  repeat,  afford  that  you 
should  be  its  rejecters  and  contemners,  and  should 
lend  all  the  credit  of  wisdom  and  virtues  such  as 
yours,  to  the  cause  which  is  so  fierce  to  explode  it. 
With  perfect  impunity  to  its  honours,  religion  can 
have  you  going  about  proclaiming,  that  you  have  re- 
ceived a  light  by  which  it  is  exposed  as  a  delusion 
and  imposture, — a  light  of  the  same  kind,  (if  so 
grave  a  topic  would  allow  so  ludicrous  an  illusion) 
as  that  which  was  obtained  where  the  satirist  reports 
to  have  seen  the  wise  men  at  work  to  extract  sun- 
beams from  cucumbers.  But  when,  in  this  self- 
assurance  of  rectified  understanding,  you  are  indulg- 
ing your  contempt  of  religion,  does  the  thought  never 
strike  you,  what  a  very  curious  chance  it  was  that 
this  brighter  illumination,  under  which  the  old  im- 
posture vanishes,  should  fall  exactly  on  you  ?  For, 
was  your  mind  of  an  order,  or  in  a  disposition,  the 
most  likely  to  attract  the  latent  element  of  truth  to 
combine  with  it,  and  disperse  the  fog  ?  Was  yours 
the  spirit  to  contemplate,  with  comprehensive  survey, 
in  purer  serenity  of  temper,  the  theory  of  religion  ? 
If  from  moral  causes  you  needed  and  wished  that 
religion  should  not  be  true,  was  thai  the  security  for 
impartial  inquiry,  and  undeceptive  conclusions  ?  If 
you  experienced  what  you  thought  injustice,  (or  I 
will  suppose  it  really  such)  from  persons  of  religious 


OF     RELIGION.  ,  33 

profession,  and  your  resentment  against  them  grew 
into  re-action  against  religion  itself,  was  that  the 
proper  mood  for  examining  its  authority  ?  If  you 
had  yourself  made  pretensions  to  piety,  but,  forfeit- 
ing your  christian  character  by  misconduct,  were 
censured  or  disowned  by  a  religious  community  with 
which  you  had  been  connected,  and  then  called  on 
infidelity  to  assist  your  revenge,  was  that  a  benign 
conjunction  under  which  to  commence  your  new 
intellectual  enterprize  ?  And  if,  to  decide  your  hes- 
itation, expel  your  yet  lingering  fears,  and  promote 
your  progress,  you  betook  yourself  to  the  compan- 
ionship, through  the  attraction  of  their  irreligion,  of 
men  whom  you  knew  to  be  unprincipled  and  profli- 
gate, and  perhaps  ignorant  too,  was  that  the  school 
in  which  you  can  feel  pride  to  have  been  learners  ? 
Such  things  recollected,  however,  may  be  quite  com- 
patible with  self-complacency,  in  persons  of  your 
principles ;  but  you  may  believe  that  religion  will 
suffer  no  default  of  its  honours,  by  not  having  such 
as  you  for  adherents. 

I  allow  that  you  have  your  advantages  in  its  re- 
jection. Indeed,  why  should  I  deny  this  very  thing 
to  be  one — that  you  can  think  of  such  a  mode  of 
deliverance  from  it,  and  not  be  stifled  with  shame  ? 
You  have  the  still  greater  privilege  of  being  set 
loose  from  the  constraint  of  many  obligations  and 
prohibitions.  You  "  are  a  chartered  (^eZ/'-ch  arte  red) 
libertine,"  and  can  give  yourself  freely  away  to 
pleasures,  amusements,  or  ambition.  And  you 
boast  that  you  have  the  high  advantage  of  being  in- 


THE    IMPORTANCE 


tent  on  realities,  while  the  captives  of  religion,  you 
say,  dragged  or  threatened  off  from  a  thousand  at- 
tractive objects  and  opportunities,  are  consuming 
their  spirits  and  life  on  mere  ideas,  on  the  imagina- 
tions of  some  intangible,  unseen,  and  reversionary 
good.  But  suspend,  for  a  moment,  your  boast  about 
this  reality  of  the  materials  of  your  happiness.  Say, 
whether  it  be  not  a  fact  that  you  are  in  no  other 
possession  of  your  favourite  objects,  than  merely  in 
idea,  during  the  far  greater  proportion  of  your  time. 
Your  thinking  of  them,  wishing  for  them,  imagining 
how  delightful  would  be  the  possession  of  them ; 
contriving  how  to  attain  them,  feeling  how  wretched 
and  impatient  you  are  in  not  having  them  yet,  fretting 
at  the  obstacles,  raging  at  your  disappointments  ; 
again  eagerly  anticipating  them,  as  now  nearly  within 
your  reach,  being  mortified  at  a  new  delay,  thrown 
in  this  chilling  moment  on  the  reflection  what  the 
pursuit  has  already  cost  you,  and  what  it  may  cost 
you  still  J  alarmed,  perhaps,  at  what  the  very  suc- 
cess may  cost  you,  in  its  possible  or  certain  conse- 
quences— what  kind  of  reality  is  all  this  f  Nearly 
the  same  as  that  of  a  fair  garden  of  fruit  to  a  man 
looking  at  it  or  attempting  it  across  a  treacherous 
moat,  a  steep  slippery  bank,  and  an  almost  impene- 
trable fence  of  thorns.  Is  this  the  reality  which 
will  bear  you  out  in  your  exultation  over  those  who 
are  wasting,  you  say,  their  energy  on  objects  which 
exist  to  them  only  in  idea  ? 

But  you   do  sometimes  obtain  your  objects,   and 
can  say  you  now  possess  the  thing  itself;  which  the 


OF    RELIGION.  6o 

devotees  to  religion,  you  say,  never  can,  since  that 
which  they  are  peculiarly  to  aspire  after,  is  confess- 
edly something  not  belonging  to  this  world.  And 
you  account  it  the  spcial  advantage  which  you  have 
over  them,  that  it  is  through  the  rejection  of  the 
truth  and  authority  of  religion  that  you  are  empower- 
ed to  make  a  large  appropriation  of  what  the  real 
world  contains  and  oflers.  Had  I  remained  servile 
to  that  domination,  you  will  exclaim,  what  an  inter- 
dict should  I  have  met,  whichever  way  I  turned  ! 
This  object  I  must  not  have  put  forth  my  hand  to- 
ward at  all ;  this  other  I  must  beware  of  following 
beyond  a  certain  length.  If,  thus  enclosed  round 
with  a  restriction  from  so  many  desirable  things,  I 
could  soar  aloft,  that  were  well.  I  had  leave  to 
mount  up  through  the  sky,  to  walk  ideally  in  a  par- 
adise, holding  converse  with  angels,  and  fixing,  by 
anticipation,  on  a  mansion  In  new  Jerusalem.  But 
I  was  for  no  such  ethereal  altitudes,  and  impalpable 
superfine  felicities.  I  wanted  the  substantial  good 
of  this  earth  ;  wanted  some  things  of  a  kind,  others 
in  a  measure,  and  many  on  terms,  which  religion  for- 
bade. I  have  disowned  the  usurped  authority,  have 
burst  through  the  restricting  circle  ;  and  now,  see 
me  here  in  possession  or  command  of  things  which 
need  no  faith  to  give  them  substance,  and  which  are 
not  the  less  agreeable  for  being  a  litte  seasoned  with 
what  your  spiritual  people  call  sin. 

But  these  realities,  when  actually  possessed,  do 
they  never  let  in  upon  you  a  mortifying  conviction, 
that  you  have  been  nevertheless  the  dupe  of  illusion.'* 


36  THE  IMPORTANCE 

As  a  purveyor  to  your  senses,  or  as  a  gay  spirit,  or 
as  a  pertinacious  aspirer  to  some  pitch  of  pre-emi- 
nence above  your  fellow  mortals  in  wealth,  or  display, 
or  power,  you  may,  in  some  instance  and  measure, 
have  succeeded  in  converting  the  mere  images  into 
the  very  substance ;  exulting,  I  may  suppose,  to 
think  how  much  you  owed  in  this  achievement  to 
your  emancipation  from  all  religious  belief;  but  re- 
collect, how  long  did  the  possession  preclude  all  pain- 
ful sense  of  deficiency  ?  Did  no  invading  dissatis- 
faction turn  your  mind  to  bitterness  of  reflection  on 
the  previous  enchantment  of  imagination,  which  had 
so  long  prompted  you  on  with  assurances  of  complete 
delight?  Might  you  never  have  been  overheard  to 
murmur,  "  What  inanity  in  all  these  things  !"  and 
to  curse  your  destiny,  as  secretly  but  an  accomplice 
of  religion,  to  punish  and  plague  you  for  its  rejec- 
tion ? 

Thus,  then,  if  you  bring  to  account  the  entire 
quantity  of  the  busy  occupation  of  your  faculties 
about  that  which  you  pursue  as  your  supreme  good, 
and  observe  that  the  proportion  of  perhaps  nineteen 
parts  in  twenty  of  all  this  is  not  the  interest  of  ac- 
tual possession,  and  then  make  the  deduction  for  the 
feelings  of  disappointment  and  chagrin  incident  to 
the  possession  obtained,  (and  which  throw  you  back 
again  into  reflection  and  imagination,  that  is,  into 
mere  ideas,  and  those  of  a  most  irksome  kind,)  it 
will  appear  that  you  have  an  extremely  narrow 
ground  for  your  boast  of  being  a  man  for  the  real- 
ities  of  good,  in  contrast  with  the  believer  in  religion^ 


OF  RELIGION.  37 

who,  you  say,  subsists  on  mere  images,  gleams,  and 
shadows  Would  your  exoerieace  thus  far  warrant 
you  to  compute,  that  all  the  moments  of  full  satis- 
faction added  together  would  amount  to  as  much  as 
one  year  in  a  long  life?  A  splendid  triumph,  for  a 
man  who  is  blessing  his  superior  reason  and  good 
fortune,  that  he  is  not  cheated  out  of  what  is  real  and 
substantial,  to  waste  h's  behig  on  the  phantasms  of 
christian  faith  !  So  much  it  is  that  you  can  gain  by 
availing  yourself,  to  the  utmost  extent  that  you  dare 
under  the  limitations  imposed  by  the  constitution  of 
nature  and  society,  of  the  license  conferred  by  your 
infidelity.  And  so  high  is  your  advantage  over  those 
who,  while  indulging  the  hope  of  an  immortal  hap- 
piness, can  make  more  than  you  can  of  this  world 
itself,  under  the  sanction  of  christian  principles  in 
their  selection  and  pursuit. 

But,  while  forced  to  admit  so  humiliating  a  repre- 
sentation, you     will,   perhaps,   in   the   re-action   of 
pride,  say,  that  your  being  in  possession  of   truth,  is 
itself  alone  a  noble  eminence  that  you  have   attained 
above  the  subjects  of  an  imposture,  the  deluded  be- 
lievers in  a  revelation.  Your  spirit  has  risen   up   in 
its  strength,  and  defied  the  antiquated  superstition  to 
lay  you  under  its  spell ;  it  has  gone   forth  in  its  might, 
and  exterminated  from  your  field  of  view  the  crowd 
of  spectres  and  chimeras.    But  you  must  allow  me 
to  doubt,  whether  you  really  feel  in  this  matter  all 
the    confident   assurance     which    you     pretend.     1 
4 


38  THE     IMPORTANCE 

suspect  there  are  times  when  you  dare  not  look  out 
over  that  field,  for  fear  of  seeing  the  portentous 
shapes  there  again  ;  and  even  that  they  sometimes 
come  close  to  present  a  ghastly  visage  to  you 
through  the  very  windows  of  your  strong  hold.  I 
have  observed  in  men  of  your  class,  that  they  often 
appear  to  regard  the  arrayed  evidences  of  revealed 
religion,  not  with  the  simple  aversion  which  may  be 
felt  for  error  and  deception,  but  with  that  kind  of 
repugnance  which  betrays  a  recognition  of  adverse 
power.  Say  what  penance  you  would  not  rather  un- 
dergo, or  of  which  of  your  most  favourite  pleasures, 
(even  of  those  in  which  you  verify  your  privilege  of 
exemption  from  the  authority  of  religion)  you  would 
not  rather  deny  yourself,  for  a  considerable  time, 
than  be  obliged  to  study  deliberately,  in  sober  retire- 
ment, a  few  of  the  works  most  distinguished  for 
strength  of  argument  in  defence  of  Christianity  ; 
though  this,  it  might  be  presumed,  should  be  a  fair 
expedient  for  confirming  your  satisfaction  ?  I  know 
that  some  of  your  class,  (and  perhaps  your  conscience 
testifies  as  to  one,)  have  no  resource  for  escaping 
from  their  disquietude,  but  in  diverting  their  atten- 
tion completely  from  the  subject,  by  throwing  them- 
selves into  the  whirl  of  amusement,  into  business, 
conviviality  or  intemperance.  But  it  is  not  the 
hero's  part  to  affect  to  be  occupied  with  necessary 
employments,  or  to  hide  himself  in  a  throng  of 
masks  and  revellers,  when  he  descries  the  antagonist 
approaching  to  challenge  him. 


OF    RELIGION.  39 

But  it  may  happen,  that  the  subject,  in  its  menac- 
ing aspect,  will  present  itself  to  you  under  circum- 
stances which  preclude  this  escape.  And  you  can 
not  be  unapprized  what  a  striking  difference,  in  spirit 
and  deportmenl,  we  have  sometimes  had  an  occasion 
of  observing,  between  one  of  your  tribe,  and  a  man 
whose  moral  strength  was  in  the  belief  and  power 
of  revealed  religion,  when  overtaken  by  some  ca- 
lamity, or  attacked  by  a  dangerous  distemper.  Nor 
can  you  have  failed  to  hear  of  examples  in  which 
that  difference  has  become  quite  prodigious,  when 
the  parties  have  sensibly  approached  their  last  hour. 
You  cannot  have  forgotten  instances  among  those 
now  lost  to  your  fraternity,  of  some  whose  closing 
life  presented  a  direful  scene  ;  who  could  maintain 
no  longer  either  their  disbelief  or  their  courage  ;  who 
poured  forth  execrations  on  their  principles,  and  on 
those  from  whom  they  had  learned  them  ;  called  out 
on  pious  relatives,  absent  or  even  dead  ;  implored 
the  intercession  of  christian  friends,  as  if,  ridiculed 
so  often  before  for  their  faith,  they  were  now  be- 
lieved to  have  power  to  propitiate  insulted  heaven; 
adjured  and  dismayed  their  associates  in  irreligion, 
if  any  of  them  had  friendship  or  hardihood  enough 
to  stay  by  them,  in  impotence  to  console  them  ;  were 
agonized  with  horror  indescribable  ;  and  expired,  as 
it  were,  in  an  explosion  of  the  last  feeble  life  by  the 
energy  of  despair.  What  security  can  you  have 
that  yours  shall  not  be  such  an  exit  f  For  some 
that  have  ended  so,  were  exceeded  by  none  in  the 
previous  ostentation  of  confidence  in  both  their  prin- 


40  THE     IMPORTANCE 

ciples  and  their  bravery.  It  would  betray  a  con- 
temptibly reckless  temper  of  m-nd,  if  you  can  answer, 
in  a  tone  of  indifference,  that  if  such  is  to  be  the 
event,  it  will  only  be  the  addition  of  one  hideous  cir- 
cumstance more,  to  the  sufferings  naturally  incident 
to  death  ;  the  concurrence  of  a  disorder  of  the  mind 
with  that  which  may  be  destroying  the  body  ;  the 
ultimate  working  out,  perhaps,  of  a  little  superstition, 
which  may  have  lain  latent  from  the  infection  of  early 
false  instruction.  Allow  the  case  to  be  put  so,  look- 
ing no  further  ;  and  even  then,  if  you  were  a  thought- 
ful man,  and  apt,  as  comports  with  that  character,  to 
look  forward;  the  anticipation  of  so  frightful  a  scene 
as  possible,  would  be  enough  to  quench  many  a  live- 
ly sparkle,  to  imbitter  many  an  unhallowed  gratifi- 
cation, to  repress  many  an  irreligious  daring,  to  dis- 
pirit many  an  ambitious  pi-oject,  to  mortify  many  a 
proud  sentiment.  But  there  is  another  thing  not  to 
be  overlooked,  which  may  warn  3'ou  to  take  care 
how  you  dispose  of  the  matter  so  lightly.  In  most 
of  these  fearful  death-scenes  of  infidelity,  the  un- 
happy mortal  has  been  racked  to  a  confession,  that 
he  had  never  dealt  honestly  with  the  subject  and 
with  his  soul ;  that  he  had  never  fairly  examined 
the  question  ;  that  he  had  not  been  sincerely  intent 
on  knowing  tlie  truth  ;  that  he  had  repelled  intru- 
sive lights,  and  suppressed  remonstrant  emotions  ; 
that  he  had  suffered  liis  pride,  his  vanity,  or  his  sen- 
suality, to  determine  his  rejection  of  the  authority 
of  revelation.  So  that  conviction  rushed  upon  them 
not  in  the  simple  character  of  truth,  but  also  in  that 


OF     RELIGION.  41 

of  vengeance.  It  had  retreated  before  their  defi- 
ance of  both  its  more  imperative  and  more  gen- 
tle attempts  during  theT  progress,  only  to  await  them 
in  retributive  power  at  the  end.  See  that  you  do 
not  forget  that  circumstance  of  their  experience, 
when  you  are  disposed  to  make  so  light  of  the  ac- 
knowledged possibility  that  your  end  may  be  like 
theirs. 

But  I  am  unwilling,  while  looking  on  your  coun- 
tenance, to  foresee  you  as  exhibiting,  one  day,  an- 
other such  spectacle  ;  and  will  limit  my  imagination 
to  represent  you  as  in  a  situation  less  appalling,  but 
very  mournful.  Let  it  be.  supposed  that  you  live 
on,  constant  to  your  present  system,  and  considera- 
bly successful  in  your  endeavour  to  make  the  best 
of  the  world  on  your  own  plan,  till  you  attain  an  ad- 
vanced age,  a  period  when  accumulating  signs,  and 
even  the  mere  reckoning  of  time,  must  warn  you, 
that  you  have  nearly  had  your  day.  Let  it  be  sup- 
posed, that  you  then  happen  to  be  in  company  with 
a  man  of  equal  age,  who  has  been  governed  from 
his  youth  by  a  firm  and  cordial  faith  in  that  which 
you  have  rejected.  Imagine  that  you  hear  him,  in- 
duced, perhaps,  by  the  hope  of  conveying  an  influ- 
ence to  the  minds  of  some  youthful  friends,  advert- 
ing briefly  and  unostentatiously  to  his  past  life,  as  a 
religious  course  ;  recalling  what  he  regards  as  the 
most  sensible  commencement  of  the  decisive  opera- 
tion of  religion  on  his  mind,  when  the  conviction  of 
its  truth  and  necessity  became  his  reigning  principle ; 
4* 


42  THE     IMPORTANCE 

then,  noting  some   of  the  effects  which  have  evinced, 
in  their  succession,  the  progress  of  its  efficacy,  both 
in  the  power  of  its  dominion,  and  in  the   creation  of 
happiness ;    and,    finally,    expressing   w^ith    emphasis 
his  delight  and  gratitude,  that  now,  in  the  cold  even- 
ing   shade    of  life,    this     heavenly  light   shines    still 
brighter,  as   intermingling  with  those  rays   which  are 
coming  fast   from  a   nobler  state   of  existence,  confi- 
dently expected   to  be  attained  through  death.     Im- 
agine yourself  silently  hearing   all  this,   expressed  in 
perfect   collectedness  of  mind,   in  language    clear  of 
all  wildness   and  inflation,   and    observing  the  aspect 
of  the    speaker,  uniformly    dignified,    whether  grave 
or  animated  ;  and  imagine,  too,  your  own  feelings  at 
being   placed  in  such  a  comparison.     Can   you  con- 
ceive it  possible    for  you  to   maintain  the    sense  of  a 
privileged  condition,  or  not   to  sink   in  the  profound- 
est  mortification  ?     What  will  you   not  be  compelled 
to  think  of  a  system,    which    throws  an    aggravation 
of  gloom   on   a  period   which  the    order   of  nature 
deprives   of  pleasures,   and  besets  with    multiplying 
grievances,  thus  brought  in  contrast  with   that  other 
system  which  warms,  and   invigorates,  and  enriches, 
the  close   of  a  worn-out   being,   with  something   far 
better  than  all  the  vivacity   and  prospects  of  youth  ? 
What   will   you    think   of  a   system,  which   forbids 
thoughtfulness  to   old  age,  and   throws  it,  for   relief, 
under  the   pressure   of  its   infirmities,   upon  the  re- 
sources of  business,  which  it  has  no  longer  strength 
to  transact,  or  of  amusements  incongruous  with  the 
character  of  that  season,  and  in  which  the  antiquat- 


OF     RELIGION.  43 

ed  performer  appears  like  a  man  dancing  and  jest- 
ing to  tiie  place  of  execution.  You  shrink  at  the 
idea  of  being  placed  in  such  a  contrast.  I  do  not 
say  to  you,  Embrace,  then,  without  delay,  the  faith 
which  would  place  you,  in  that  last  stage,  on  the 
superior  ground  ;  for  you  will  tell  me,  that  your  be- 
lief is  not  in  your  own  power  ;  meaning,  when  you 
say  so,  (is  not  this  the  plain  truth  ?)  that  you  have 
no  disposition  to  a  serious,  diligent,  and  really  im- 
partial re-examination  of  the  subject  ;  but,  at  least, 
I  am  authorized  to  advise  you  to  be  henceforth  a 
little  reserved  in  your  ridicule  of  books  describing 
the  rise  and  progress  of  religion  in  the  soul.  If 
tempted  at  any  time  to  its  unrestrained  indulgence, 
just  look  forward  to  the  predicament  in  which  you 
may  one  day  feel  that  you  stand,  in  compaison  with 
a  man  who  has  experienced  that  process,  (whether 
the  operating  cause  be  a  beguilement  or  a  truth,) 
and  is  joyfully  awaiting  its  consummation.  And  I 
venture  to  predict  to  you,  that,  in  such  a  case,  your 
utmost  efforts  to  re-assure  yourself  that  the  man  so 
constrasted  with  you  is  but  a  deluded  fool,  will  do 
little  to  disperse  the  gloom  settling  and  thickening 
on  your  spirit. 

But  now  let  us  turn  our  thoughts  to  conjecture 
the  kind  of  reception  which  this  good  book  may 
have  found  with  persons  of  several  classes  greatly 
different  from  the  example  we  have  been  supposing. 
We  may  assume,  as  a  certainty,  that  it  has  caught 
the  notice  of  very  many  persons  indisposed  to  reli- 


44  THE    IMPORTANCE. 

gion,  but  entertaining  no  doubt  that  we  have  a  reve- 
lation to  declare  its  nature,  and  to  command  our  sol- 
emn attention  to  it,.  The  circumstance  d'd  actually 
happen,  th?t  the  words  of  the  title  were  talvcn  in  by 
the  e3'es,  and  th?_t  some  thoughts  were  involuntarily 
raised  in  the  m5nd.  Persons  now  living  may  jecol- 
lect  this  hav'-^g  occu-red  to  them  as  an  incident 
which  did  not  olease  them.  We  can  imag'ne  it  to 
have  happened  to  more  than  a  few  c^y  young  per- 
sons, of  minds  not  uncultivated,  not  left  v-^nlirely  un- 
instructed  respecting  the  highest  concern  of  their 
existence,  but  quite  averse  to  ihink  of  so  serious  a 
subject.  A  pious  relative  might  have  placed  the 
book;  by  a  dclicpie  device,  in  the  way  to  seize  the 
eye  ;  or  Jl  might  be  taken  up  whon  casually  lying  on 
the  table  of  an  acquaintance.  And  we  are  to  sure 
w^e  are  but  picturing  an  exa-nple  of  many  that  there 
have  been  of  the  same  kiad,  Vi^hen  v.e  imagine  we 
see  the  young  peison  has^'Iy  laying  down  the  volume, 
with  a  look  of  disappointment  and  distaste,  expres- 
sive of  the  sentiment,  That  is  no  book  for  me.  To 
glance  over  the  title-page  was  quite  disgust  enough 
for  so  frivolous  a  spirit  to  end  die.  In  another  in- 
stance, we  seem  to  see  the  young  person  inspecting 
the  book  for  a  few  moments,  in  an  unfixed,  heedless 
manner,  plainly  indicating  it  would  soon  be  closed  ; 
presently  throwing  it  aside,  as  worth  no  further  at- 
tention ;  then  fortunately  detecting,  where  it  had 
slidden  in  among  better  books,  some  very  silly  ro- 
mance ;  seizing  it  as  a  discovered  treasure,  and 
unable  to  lay  it  down  till  a  whole  volume  was  run 


OF  RELIGION.  45 

through.     Another  case  may  be  conceived,  in  which 
our  book,  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Religion,  has 
chanced   to  be  within   sight,  in  the  interval  of  ani- 
mated,   restless    expectation  of  meeting  some    gay 
associates,  or  of   going  to  some  amusement  ;  when 
it  detained  the  youthful   thought  no   longer  than  to 
suggest  a  pleasurable  idea  of  the  difference,  between 
the  dull  and  funeral  business  of  religion,  and   such 
exhilaration  as  that  in  prospect.     It  might  be  no  ex- 
cess  of  fancy  to    suppose    another  case ;  that    this 
same  book  obtruded  itself  on  the  sight  of  a  young 
person  in  an  hour  of  disgust  and  fallen  spirits,  after 
suffering     some     disappointment     and    mortification 
amidst  those  gay  delights  which  had  been  so  exult- 
ingly  anticipated  ;  and  that  it  excited  no  better  feel- 
ing than  this,   Let  me  not  have  another  odious  thing 
just  now  to  plague  me  ;  I  am  vexed  and  out  of  pa- 
tience enough.     For    one   more  instance  ;  a  young 
person  of  this  light  spirit  might  be  on  terms  of  ac- 
quaintance with  one  of  a  more  thoughtful  character, 
and  might  happen  to  find  the  latter  reading,  or  ap- 
parently  having  just   read,  the   book,  in   question ; 
and  might  betray  some  marks  of  sincere  wonder  at 
so  strange  a  taste  ;  internallv  saying.  If  /were  ever 
to  have  been  caugJit  employed  with  such  a  book,  J 
would  have  hastily  put  it  ouc  of  sight,  ac  the  entrance 
of  a  pleasant  visitor. — No  one  will  doubt,  that  there 
may  have  been  facts  answering  to  these  conjectural 
descriptions  ;  and  we  might,  with  equal  piobabilityj 
diversify  the  representation  into  many  other  prrticu- 
lar  forms.     Where  and  what   are   the  persons  now. 


46  THE      IMPORTANCE 

who  were  the  reality  of  what  we  thus  are  supposing  ? 
But  will  there  .not  be  yet  many  more  human  beings 
to  be  added  to  the  account  of  such  examples  ? 

It  may  be  that,  in  some  of  these  instances,  the 
young  person  did  not  escape  receiving  some  hints  of 
admonition,  from  a  friend,  \vhose  benevolent  vigi- 
lance had  perceived  this  refusal  to  converse  an  hour, 
or  a  moment,  with  a  book  soliciting  attention  to  the 
most  important  subject.  Whatever  might  actually 
be  the  strain  of  such  an  admonition,  we  may  think 
that  friend, — not  laying  any  stress  on  the  bare  cir- 
cumstance of  dislike  to  this  particular  book,  but 
taking  occassion  from  it,  as  indicating  aversion  to  re- 
ligion itself, — would  have  deserved  to  be  listened  to 
in  using  such  terms  as  the  following  : — Will  you  be 
persuaded,  is  it  possible  to  induce  you,  to  make  a 
short  effort  with  your  mind,  to  constrain  it  to  serious 
reflection  ?  Would  you  have  me,  or  not,  to  regard 
you  as  capable  of  thinking  and  judging,  as  in  pos- 
session of  a  share  of  good  sense,  and  as  admitting 
that  there  really  may  be  a  just  call  for  its  exercise, 
€ven  at  your  age?  You  are  not  willing  to  be  ac- 
counted the  reverse  of  this.  Well  then,  prove  that 
you  can  think,  and  that  you  can  perceive  when  there 
is  a  subject  before  you  which  has  peculiar  claims 
that  you  should  think.  And  is  there  any  thing 
which  can  urge  a  more  peremptory  claim  than  the 
questions,  What  manner  of  being  it  is  that  you  pos- 
sess, to  what  end  you  possess  it,  and  how  it  should 
be  occupied  in  order  to  the  attainment  of  that  end  ? 
Is  your  own  nature  a  thing  of  such  little  account  with 


OF      RELIGION.  47 

you,  that  you  are  quite   satisfied   with  the  mere  fact 
of  its   being   an    existence  ;  and    that  you   have  no 
doubt  whether  you   may  give   away  all    its  faculties, 
without  care  or  accounlableness,  to  whatever  pleas- 
es them  and   invites   them   into   action?     Does  every 
consciousness    you  feel  of  what  there  is   in  that  na- 
ture, agree  to  your  living  as  a  gay  bird  of  the  spring  - 
as    a  creature   made   for  the  play  and  reve!   of  mere 
life  and  sensation  ;  or  at  most,  fitted  for   some  little 
schemes  of  transient  interests,   confined  to  a  span  of 
existence,  and  liable  to  be  broken  up  and   given  to 
the  winds  at  any   hour  ?     Is   this    all  you   find  in  the 
endowments  of  your  nature  ;  is   this  the    amount  of 
its   capabilities   and    dignity  ?     No,   you   would  say ; 
you   believe    that  you  possess,     for  you  have   been 
taught  that  all  of  us  do,  a  spirit,  of  noble  quality  and 
important   destination.     Do  you  indeed   believe   any 
such   thing  f   what,   while   I  see  the  whole   vigour  of 
your  being,  animal  and  ment  d,  at  so ne  times   dissi- 
pated in  levity,   spirited    off  in    eflfusions   of  mirth ; 
or  at  other   times   consumed    in   earnest  protracted 
assiduity   to   accomplish   some  contrivance  for  per- 
sonal  display,     some   little   feat   of  competition,    or 
some  scheme,    (a  grand  one,   you   think,)  of  creating 
for  yourself  a  happiness  for  a  few  years,  from  mate- 
rials which  every  day   must  diminish,  and  any    day 
may  annihilate  ?  Is  it  impossible  to    you,   or   do  you 
not  think  it  worth  while,  to  reflect  whether   so  living 
be    consistent   with    so    believing  ?    Does  it    never 
strike  you  as  a  thing  to  wonder  at,  that  there  can  be 
a  creature    so  strangely    formed  as   to  admit    these 


48  THE     IMPORTANCE 

things  to  coalesce,  and  that  you  happen  to  be  that 
creature  ?  Or  do  you  escape  all  sense  of  inconsis- 
tency and  shame  through  mere  thoughtlessness, 
which  pre  Agents  your  being  reminded  of  that  truth 
whi^h  you  say  you  believe  ? 

Mere  thoughtlessness  !  and  how  is  that  possible  ? 
How  is  it  possible  to  believe  what  you  affirm  that 
you  do,  and  not  often  feel  a  solemn  influence  com- 
ing over  your  mind,  and  banishing,  for  at  least  a 
little  while,  all  trifling  moods  and  interests?  Assur- 
ed that  you  are,  as  to  the  most  essential  property  of 
your  nature,  a  spiritual  and  immortal  being,  think, 
account  to  yourself,  hov/  it  can  be  that  such  a  con- 
viction, fixed  and  abiding  within  you,  should  abide 
there  alone,  disconnected  from  all  the  activity  of 
your  ideas  and  feelings,  having,  so  to  speak,  nothing 
to  do  there  ;  while  in  all  reason  it  ought  to  be  com- 
bined there  with  many  most  inportant  ideas  with 
which  it  has  an  inseparable  relation,  and  which  it 
ought  to  keep  there  in  active  force. 

For,  consider  what  you  are  admitting,  when  you 
say  you  believe  you  are  such  a  being.  You  are  ad- 
mitting that  you  stand  in  a  solemn  relation  to  the 
Almighty ;  that  your  present  state  of  existence  is 
but  a  brief  introduction  to  another ;  that  your  body 
is  but  a  frame  accommodated  to  retain  your  supe- 
rior and  more  essential  being  for  a  short  period  in 
this  world ;  that  its  interests,  therefore,  and  all  in- 
terests which  respect  this  world  exclusively,  are  in- 
finitely insignificant  in  comparison  with  those  of  the 
spirit;    that    you    are     every  moment    in   progress 


OF     RELIGION.  49 

toward  the  experience  of  a  happiness  or  misery  of 
incalculable  magnitude  ;  and  that  this  short  and  un- 
certain life  is  the  season  for  maturing  the  disposi- 
tions and  habits  to  a  state  which  will  consign  you  to 
the  one  or  the  other,  if  the  declarations  of  God  be 
true.  Can  you  attempt  to  deny,  or  pretend  to  doubt, 
that  all  this  is  included  in  the  fact  of  your  possess- 
ino"  a  rational  spirit,  destined  to  endless  existence, 
and  most  justly  required  to  obey  the  commands  of 
your  Creator?  But  if  this  be  true,  you  cannot  ex- 
ercise your  judgment,  and  listen  to  your  conscience, 
for  one  hour,  without  plainly  seeing  what  is  your 
highest  interest  and  most  imperious  duty.  Nothing 
in  the  world,  nothing  in  all  truth,  can  press  upon  you 
with  mightier  evidence,  than  that  your  grand  busi- 
ness in  life  is  the  care  of  the  soul,  that  shall  live  for 
ever.  Confess  to  your  reason  and  conscience  that 
the  case  is  so,  and  that  any  assertion  to  the  contrary 
would  instantly  strike  you  as  false  and  foolish. 

You  do  confess  it.  'But  what,  then,  should  be 
thought  of  you,  what  should  you  think  of  yourself, 
if  you  will  then  act  as  if  the  very  contrary  were 
the  truth.  Suppose  that,  (in  such  a  spontaneous 
escape  of  thoughts  in  words,  as  sometimes  happens 
to  a  person  musing  in  the  security  of  solitude,)  the 
prevailing  disposition  of  your  mind  were  to  utter 
itself  involuntarily  and  audibly,  and  in  expressions 
like  these  : — "  My  supreme  concern  is  as  clear  to 
my  view  as  the  sun ;  there  is  no  denying  it,  there  is 
no  question  about  it ;  it  is,  to  apply  myself  earnestly 


60  THE     IMPORTANCE 

to  secure  the  Aveliare,  here  and  hereafter,  of  my 
immortal  spirit ;  but  I  feel  no  such  care  ;  I  dislike 
and  evade  all  admonitions  which  would  enforce 
it  on  me  ;  I  yield  myself  to  this  disposition,  without 
restraint,  or  remorse,  or  fear,  for  the  present,  and 
shall  do  so — I  do  not  know,  nor  much  care,  how 
long."  Supposing  this  uttered  in  an  almost  uncon- 
scious passing  of  your  mind  into  your  voice,  w^ould 
you  not  be  awaked  and  startled  into  recollection  at 
sounds  of  such  import,  and  be  almost  surprised  into 
the  question — "  Who  was  saying  that  ?  Was  it  I  ? 
How  strangely  it  would  have  sounded  if  any  one  had 
been  within  hearing."  If  any  one  had  been  within 
hearing  !  And  could  you  forget  that  there  is  One 
who  perfectly  knows  that  internal  disposition,  of 
which  expressions  like  these  might  be  the  genuine 
utterance  ? 

While  you  are  intent  on  being  happy,  surely  it 
should  be  one  thing  regarded  as  indispensable  to 
your  being  truly  so,  that  you  can  approve  yourself; 
that,  whatever  imperfections  there  are  for  you  to 
condemn  and  regret,  you  yet  can  feel  a  deliberate 
complacency,  a  complacency  of  reflection  and  con- 
science, in  the  prevailing  habit  and  purpose  of  your 
mind.  What  is  it  worth,  that  a  variety  of  outward 
things  should  please  you,  if  you  are  haunted  with  a 
sense  that  your  ow^n  internal  condition,  the  condition 
of  your  very  self,  is  something  to  grieve  you  ?  Now 
I  wish  it  were  possible  to  induce  you  to  turn  upon 
yourself  one  resolute,  patient,  impartial  inspection. 
Tiiook,   with   the    intentness   with  which   you  w-^^*^ ' 


OF  RELIGION.  51 

gaze  on  an  emblematical  picture,  in  whose  signs  you 
could  believe  your  destiny  to  be  figured  out,  look  on 
the  being,  formed  for  an  endless  futurity,  but  en- 
grossed by  the  interests  of  a  day;  appointed,  after 
a  short  term,  to  pass  into  another  world,  but  repel- 
ling all  thoughts  and  monitions  of  it ;  capable  of  an 
elevated  and  perpetual  felicity,  but  sunk  and  expend- 
ed in  transient  pleasures  and  precarious  hopes ;  in- 
vited to  communion  with  the  Father  of  Spirits,  but 
turning  away,  with  indifference  or  aversion,  to  seek 
all  that  it  wants,  for  affection  and  assistance,  in  the 
intercourse  of  associates  who  are  equally  careless  of 
his  favour ;  and  summoned  to  adopt  a  wise  and  con- 
stant discipline,  to  make  sure  of  its  true  welfare,  in 
time  and  eternity,  but  surrendering  the  formation  of 
it  scharacter,  and  the  direction  of  its  course,  to  wiiat 
ever  may  happen  to  obtain  the  ascendency,  to  cas- 
ual impressions,  ill  chosen  friends,  or  the  prevailing 
spirit  and  habits  of  the  world.  Behold  this  specta- 
cle as  being  yourself,  your  very  self.  Do  you  turn 
from  the  sight,  and  say  you  do  not  like  to  look  at 
it  ?  What,  then,  you  confess  that,  amidst  all  the 
youthful  vivacity  in  which  you  spring  to  catch  the 
passing  pleasures,  and  call  them  happiness,  one 
primary  requisite  to  true  happiness  is  wanting.  *  You 
cannot  be  happy  w^hile  you  dare  not  be  sometimes 
still,  and  abstracted  from  the  stir,  lest  you  should 
hear  a  complaining  and  accusing  voice  from  within, 
telling  you  there  is  something  fatally  wrong  there. 

You  are  reluctant  to  give  any  attention  to  religion, 
and  to  look  into  a  book  w'hich  describes  its  Rise  and 


62  THE  IMPORTANCE 

Progress  in  the  Soul.  Why  should  you,  you  think. 
have  the  brightness  of  your  early  season  overcast 
with  the  gloom  of  such  a  subject? — preferring,  in 
effect,  that  this  shade,  if  it  must  come  sometime, 
should  wait  to  bring  additional  darkness  over  a  pe- 
riod when  the  sunshine  of  youth  will  be  past,  and 
life  be  declining  into  that  season  which  you  never 
think  of  but  as  of  itself  a  dreary  one.  How  cruel 
the  gay  youth  can  resolve  to  be  to  the  aged  person 
that  he  expects  to  become  !  I  will  repel,  he  prac- 
tically says,  all  invasion  of  a  grave  subject  from  this 
my  season  of  animation  and  delight,  at  the  cost  of 
having  it  to  come,  as  a  melancholy  cloud  over  a  time 
when  I  shall,  by  the  course  of  nature,  have  outlived 
the  best  part  of  my  life.  So  that  my  season  of  en- 
ergy and  enjoyment  be  kept  clear,  never  mind  what 
I  may  be  accumulating  to  bring  sadness  on  my  spirit 
in  that  stage  where  I  shall  need  every  consolation. 
— Surely  the  consciousness  of  acting  on  such  a  plan* 
should  itself  be  enough  to  damp  the  gayest  of  your 
vivacities. 

Your  are  unwilling  to  yield  to  the  claims  of  reli- 
gion. But  will  you  not  take  the  trouble  to  con- 
sider what  religion  is,  and  in  what  manner  it  con- 
cerns you?  It  is  not  a  thing  which  your  Creator 
imposes  on  you  by  a  mere  arbitrary  appointment ; 
as  if  he  would  exact,  simply  in  assertion  of  his  su- 
premacy, and  in  requirement  of  homage  from  his 
creature,  something  which  is  in  itself  foreign  to  the 
necessities  of  your  nature.  By  its  intrinsic  quality 
it  so  corresponds  to  your  nature,  that  the  possession 


OF    RELIGION. 


of  it  is  vital,  and   its  rejection  mortal,  to  your  felici- 
ty, even  independently   of  its  being  made  obligatory 
by   the  positive  injunction  of  the  Almighty.     From 
the  spiritual  principle  of  your  soul,   there  is  an  ab- 
solute necessity  that  it  be   raised   into   complacent 
communication  with  its  Divine  Original ;  it  is  con- 
stituted to  need  this  communication,  now   and   for 
ever ;  apd  if  it  be  not  so  exalted,  it  is  degraded  and 
prostrated  to   objects  which   cannot,  by    their  very 
nature,  adequately  meet,  and  fill,  and  bless,  its  fac- 
ulties :  to  be  elevated   to  this  communication,  is  reli- 
gion.    You  do  not,  I  presume,  wish  that  your  spirit 
were  a  being  destined  to  final  extinction  a  few  years 
hence  ;  but  would  you  have  it  be  immortal,  and  yet 
estranged    from  what    must  naturally  concern  it  as 
immortal  ?  If  really  immortal,  it  is  under  a  plain  ne- 
cessity of  its  nature  to  give   a  devoted  regard  to  its 
interests  of  hereafter,  of  eternity  :  to  do  so,  is  reli- 
gion.    Again,  your  soul  is  tainted  with  corruption  ; 
it  is  infected  with  sin  ;  your  are  sometimes  conscious 
that  it  is ;  and  this  is  a  malady  which  may  cling  to 
it,  and  inhere  in  it,   after  all  bodily  diseases    have 
ceased  in  death.     But   then  there  is  the  plainest  ne- 
cessity that  some  grand  operation  be  effected  in  it 
to  remove  this  fatal  disorder  ;  that  its  condition  be 
renovated  and  purified  ;  that  the  action  of  its  povv- 
ers  be  determined  to  the  right  ends  ;  that  its  guilt  be 
pardoned  ;  that,  in  one  word,  it  be   redeemed  :  now 
this  great  process  in  the  soul   is  religion.     Thus  you 
may   see  that  there  can  be  no  grosser  misapprehen- 
sion than  that  which  has   sometimes  prompted   the 
6* 


54  THE    IMPORTANCE 

impious  wish,  that  God  had  not  made  religion  neces- 
sary by  enjoining  it;  for  that,  but  for  this  extrinsic 
necessity,  this  necessity  of  mere  obligation  to  his 
authority,  religion  might  have  been  neglected,  and 
the  neglecter  have  fared  never  the  worse. 

But  you  plead  that,  whatever  may  be  your  con- 
viction, and  ought  to  be  your  feeling,  you  cannot 
help  regarding  religion  as  an  austere  and.  gloomy 
concern ;  that  you  have  at  times  wished  the  case 
were  otherwise  ;  but  so  it  is,  that  the  subject  still 
presents  the  same  repulsive  aspect,  whenever  it 
comes  by  unpleasant  surprise,  or  in  the  returns  of 
public  or  private  religious  instruction,  on  your  atten- 
tion. You  will  take  every  precaution  to  avoid  being 
left  alone  with  a  person,  however  estimable  and  kind, 
from  whom  you  are  apprehensive  of  recieving  any 
admonition  respecting  it.  Perhaps  even  the  sight 
of  a  book,  familiarly  known  to  be  (as  this  of  the 
Rise  and  Progress  of  Religion)  an  earnest  pointed 
inculcation  of  it,  is  like  glancing  at  the  picture  of  a 
skeleton.  The  subject  might  become  quite  a  griev- 
ance of  your  life, — even  this  subject,  which  repre- 
sents to  you  how  to  be  happy  forever  ! — did  not 
your  health,  your  elastic  spirits,  your  companions, 
your  diversions,  defend  you  so  well  against  its  fre- 
quent or  prolonged  annoyance.  But  sometimes, 
perhaps,  an  interval  does  occur,  when  it  visits  you 
in  such  a  character  of  authority,  that  your  resistance 
fails  for  a  short  time,  you  are  taken  at  an  advantage, 
and  compelled  to  hear  something  of  its  declarations, 
claims,  and  remonstrances.     And  then  you  murmur. 


OF    RELIGION.  5d 

and  say,  A  cruel  alternative!  to  yield  such  submis- 
sion, or  incur  such  consequences.  Is  it  not  hard  that 
I  should  be  required  to  surrender  all  the  delights 
which  are  the  privilege  of  my  age,  to  repress  my 
vivacity,  to  forsake  my  gay  society,  abandon  my 
amusements,  to  inflict  self-denial  on  my  inclinations 
at  every  turn,  to  deplore  all  that  I  am,  and  all  that  I 
have  been ;  to  force  my  attention  and  affections 
away  from  this  interesting  world  around  me,  toward 
another  and  unseen  world  of  which  I  know  nothing ; 
to  toil  through  severe  and  never-ceasing  exercises, 
called  discipline  ;  to  exhaust  my  spirits  in  solemn 
reflection  ;  to  live  in  terror  lest  every  thing  I  do  or 
enjoy  should  be  sin ;  to  renounce,  and  put  myself 
in  conflict  with,  the  prevailing  habits  of  society  ;  to 
be  marked  as  an  over-righteous  or  melancholy  mor- 
tal ;  to  look  through  a  darkened  medium  at  every 
thing  in  life ;  and  to  go  through  the  world  thinking 
of  every  step  as  a  progress  toward  the  grave  ? 

Now,  even  were  it  admitted  that  all  this  is  a  true 
representation  of  religion,  that  all  this  is  its  require- 
ment, the  friend  who  is  urging  it  upon  you  might 
still  maintain  his  argument.  The  question,  he  would 
say,  what  cost  we  should  be  willing  to  bear  in  a  pro- 
cess, is  to  be  determined,  if  wisdom  be  the  judge, 
by  an  estimate  of  the  result.  The  greatest  tempo- 
rary evil  would  be  a  mild  condition  of  the  attainment 
of  an  eternal  good.  If  religion  actually  did  require 
all  this,  but  in  return  assured  you  of  being  safe  and 
happy  forever,  what  would  your  high  endowment  of 
reason  be  worth,  in  practical  application,  if  you  would 


56  THE    IMPORTANCE 

not   resolve  on  the  endurance  of  such  an  introduc- 
tion, rather  than  lose  such  a  sequel  ? 

But  you  well  know  that  such  a  representation, 
unqualified,  is  no  just  account  of  the  demands  of 
religion.  And  beware  of  allowing  yourself  in  the 
disingenousness  of  exaggerating  the  hardship,  in 
order  to  extenuate  to  your  conscience,  or  to  vindi- 
cate against  your  friendly  admonisher,  your  neglect 
of  the  duty. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  true,  and  must  be  unequiv- 
ocally avowed,  that  religion,  effectually  prosecuted, 
does  involve  great  labours,  a  discipline  often  severe, 
and  therefore  many  painful  experiences.  It  must 
include  much  that  is  mortifying  to  natural  inclina- 
tions. How  should  it  be  otherwise  with  a  being  of 
a  corrupt  nature,  who  is  to  be  trained  and  prepared, 
and  that  while  under  the  incessant  influences  of  a 
corrupt  world,  for  a  final  state  of  holiness  and  felic- 
ity .^  If  the  natural  condition  of  the  mind  be  un- 
congenial what  is  divine  and  heavenly,  its  affec- 
tions unattempered  to  live  and  delight  in  that  ele- 
ment which  is  the  vitality  of  the  happiness  of  the 
beings  whom,  alone  and  exclusively,  the  revelation 
from  God,  and  even  your  own  reason,  authorize  you 
to  conceive  of  as  happy  in  a  superior  state, — if  there 
be  this  alienation  and  unfitness,  (and  what  is  the 
aversion  to  religion  but  the  proof  of  it  ?  or  rather,  it 
is  the  thing  itself,) — if  the  case  be  so,  then  the  soul 
is  in  a  condition  so  dreadfully  wrong,  that  it  is  not 
strange  the  agency  for  transforming  it  should  inflict 
pain   in  the   salutary  process.     That  it   should  work 


OF     RELIGION.  57 

with  some  expedients  of  bitterness,  keenness,  and 
fire,  is  quite  in  analogy  with  the  operations  neces- 
sary for  subduing  the  extreme  maladies  of  an  infe- 
rior order.  Perhaps  you  will  say  that,  as  the  Di- 
vine Power,  in  the  time  and  in  the  person  of  our 
Lord,  annihilated  the  worst  diseases  of  the  body  by 
a  single  act,  making  the  subject  perfectly  well,  in  an 
instant,  and  without  pain,  so  the  Almighty  could  in- 
stantaneously set  the  moral  nature  right,  causing  the 
spirit  to  rise  up  suddenly  in  the  delightful  conscious- 
ness, that  not  a  particle  of  evil  remains,  blessed  with 
a  triumph  over  the  disastrous  fall,  and  assuming  a 
ground  still  higher  than  that  which  our  first  progeni- 
tor lost.  No  doubt  he  could  ;  but  since  he  has  not 
willed  such  an  economy,  the  question  comes  to  you, 
whether  you  can  deliberately  judge  it  better  to  carry 
forward  a  corrupt  nature  uncorrected,  untransform- 
ed,  unreclaimed  to  God,  into  the  future  state  where 
it  must  be  miserable,  than  to  undergo  whatever  sever- 
ity is  indispensable  in  the  process  of  the  religion 
which  would  prepare  you  for  a  happy  eternity. 
Reflect,  that  you  are;  every  day  practically  answer- 
ing the  question.  Can  it  be  that  you  are  answering 
it  in  the  affirmative  ?  Do  I  really  see  before  me  the 
rational  being  who  in  effect  avows, — I  cannot,  will 
not,  submit  to  such  a  discipline,  though,  in  refusing 
it  and  resisting  it,  I  renounce  an  infinite  and  eternal 
good,  and  consign  myself  to  perdition  ? 

Religion,  it  is  acknowledged,  brings  its  pains; 
just  because  it  comes  from  heaven  to  maintain  a 
deadly  conflict  in  the  soul,  with  principles  and  dis- 


5S  THE    IMPORTANCE 

positions  which  are  rebellious  against  heaven,  and 
destructive  to  the  soul  itself.  Notliing  can  be  more 
thoughtless  or  unknowing  than  the  strain  in  which 
some  have  indulged  in  the  recommendation  of  it,  as 
if  it  were  all  facility  and  enjoyment.  You  have  pos- 
sibly heard  or  read  graceful  periods  of  descant  on 
the  subject,  representing  to  young  people  especially, 
that  their  unsophisticated  principles,  their  lively 
perception  of  the  good  and  the  fair,  their  generous 
sentiments,  their  uncontaminated  affections,  are  so 
much  in  unison  with  the  spirit  of  piety,  that  it  is 
a  matter  of  the  utmost  ease  for  them,  for  such  as 
you,  to  enter  on  the  happiness  of  the  religious  life. 
Some  little  obstruction  surmounted,  one  light  spring 
made,  and  you  regain  the  walks  of  Eden !  Did  you 
believe  it?  If  you  did,  what  unaccountable  caprice, 
what  pure  wantonness  of  perversity,  could  it  be  that 
withheld  you  ^  Or,  if  you  were  induced  to  make 
some  short  attempt  in  the  way  of  experiment,  did 
you  not  wonder  how  it  should  happen,  by  a  peculiar 
untowardness  in  your  case,  that  these  youthful  qual- 
ities, so  congenial  with  piety,  and  so  easy  to  be  re- 
solved into  it,  did  nevertheless  prove  obstinately 
repugnant  to  the  union .''  Did  you  not  think,  Why, 
then,  this  aversion  to  read  the  Bible,  or  to  retire  for 
serious  meditation  and  devotional  exercise,  or  to  any 
act  of  duty  to  be  done  simply  in  obedience  to  God  t 
But,  the  declamation  which  you  had  heard  was  idle 
rhetoric,  or  wretched  ignorance. 

It  must  be  acknowledged,  also,  that  much  worthier 
teachers  have,  from  a  better  cause,  sometimes  com- 


OF    RELIGION.  59 

mitted  an  error  in  underrating,  or  keeping  nearely  out 
of  view,  the  austerer  characteristics  of  religion,  when 
inculcating  it  on  youth.  In  their  benevolent  zeal  to 
persuade,  they  were  desirous  of  presenting  a  picture 
wholly  attractive.  And  perhaps  religion  was  be- 
come so  decidely  their  own  chief  happiness,  that 
they  could,  for  the  time,  forget  the  pains  of  the 
transformation  through  which  it  had  become  so. 
They  have  therefore  made  a  representation  illumi- 
nated nearely  all  over  with  delightful  images.  It  is 
better  that  you  should  see  the  whole  truth,  and 
clearly  understand  that  the  agent  which,  in  a  ca- 
pacity like  that  of  a  tutelary  spirit,  takes  in  charge  a 
perverted,  sinful,  tempted  being,  to  be  humbled  and 
reclaimed,  taught  many  mortifying  lessons,  disciplin- 
ed through  a  series  of  many  corrections,  reproved, 
restrained,  and  incited,  and  thus  conducted  onward, 
in  advancing  preparation  for  the  happiness  of  an- 
other world,  must  be  the  inflicter  of  many  pains  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  this  beneficent  guardianship. 
And  it  is  not,  as  your  aversion  and  murmurs  would 
imply,  the  fault  of  religion  that  the  case  is  so,  but  of 
that  depraved  nature  which  religion  is  designed  and 
indispensable  to  redeem. 

So  much  for  the  darker  side.  But  now,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  can  surely  conceive,  as  compatible 
with  all  this,  a  great  preponderance  of  happiness  in 
this  life.  And  therefore  you  ought  to  take  it  on 
your  conscience  as  a  reproach  for  criminal  want  of 
thought,  or  of  honesty,  that  you  will  admit  no  other 
notion  of  religion  than  that  of  a  gloomy  melancholy 


60  THE    IMPORTANCE 

thing.  When  you  are  turning  away  from  it,  as  a 
grim  and  ghostly  object,  sent  to  encounter  you  for 
no  more  friendly  purpose  than  to  obstruct  you,  with 
threatening  aspect,  at  every  avenue  to  the  scenes  of 
delight,  there  ought  to  arise  within  your  mind  a 
sterner  image,  to  condemn  you  for  wilfully  misjudg 
ing  its  character,  and  the  service  it  has  to  offer  you. 
For  you  can  comprehend  that  there  is  attainable, 
through  the  efficacy  of  religion,  something  far  better 
than  all  you  can  hope  ever  to  enjoy  under  the  unhal- 
lowed advantage  of  rejecting  it.  Try  faithfully 
whether  you  cannot  understand,  that  it  would  be  a 
great  felicity  to  feel  that  your  spirit  is  changing  into 
conformity  to  a  nobler  model,  growing  into  the  only 
right  constitution  and  image  to  be  retained  forever; 
to  feel  that  the  evil  which  infests  it  is  shrinking  and 
subdued  under  a  mightier  power ;  to  regard  the  best 
and  greatest  Being  as  no  longer  an  appalling  object, 
thought  of  with  reluctance,  and  a  wish  that  you 
could  be  forever  out  of  his  sight  and  reach  ;  but  now 
with  emotions  of  love,  and  confidence,  and  hope, 
with  an  assurance  of  his  mercy  through  Jesus  Christ, 
with  an  experience  of  real  communication  with  him 
concerning  all  your  interests,  and  with  a  conscious- 
ness that  you  are  in  activity  for  a  Master  who  will 
confer  an  infinite  reward.  Think  whether  it  would 
not  be  happy  to  feel  habitually  a  power,  maintaining 
a  sacred  control  over  your  passions  and  your  will, 
and  preserving  the  current  of  your  life  unmingled 
with  the  world's  pollutions.  Imagine  yourself  ani- 
mated, at  the  close  of  each  year  or  shorter  period, 


OF    RELIGION.  Gl 

with  a  fervent  gratitude  to  God,  in  the  consideration 
wliat  sins  and  follies  he  has  saved  you  from  thus 
much  longer.  Can  you  doubt  whether  that  one 
emotion  would  really  be  worth  more,  to  an  account- 
able being,  than  all  the  pleasurable  feelings  which 
an  irreligious  person  can  have  enjoyed  during  the 
whole  interval  ? 

Place  before  your  mind  a  scheme  of  life,  in  which 
you  shall  see  yourself  committing    to  the  care   and 
disposal  of  a  beneficent  Providence,   the  course   of 
your  life  from  the    beginning,  with  a  constant  assur- 
ance   that   Sovereign    Wisdom   and    Goodness   will 
watch  over  all  its  movements   and  events,  will  con- 
duct you  through  its  perplexities  and  perils,  will  give 
you  just  so  much  temporal  good  that  more  would  not 
be  for  your  welfare,  and  will  constrain  all  things  which 
you  are  to  pass  through  to  co-operate   to  your  ulti- 
mate  happiness.     Think  also  of  enjoying  the    con- 
sciousness that  you  are  not  throwing  the  inestimable 
spring  season  of  your  life  away,   but  expending  it  so 
as  to  enrich  every  succeeding  period,  and  to  ensure 
a    fine   setting   sun    upon   the    last.      Say   honestly, 
whether  all  this  be   not  something  better  than  any 
scheme   of  life  v/hich  you  have  indulged  your  imag- 
ination in  shaping.     Or,  if  you  sometimes  surrender 
yourself  to  the  fascinations  of  romance  and   poetry, 
glowing  over  bright  pictures  of  felicity  in  which  re- 
ligion has  no   place,  make   the  experiment  on  your 
mind,  in  an  hour  of  cooler  feeling,  whether  you  dare 
pronounce  that  it  would  be  well  to  forego  this  hap- 
6 


62  THE  IMPORTANCE 

piness  of  religion,  by  a  preference  of  that  exhibited 
in  these  highly  coloured  fictions,  on  the  supposition 
that  they  could,  for  you,  be  turned  into  reality. 
Yes,  if  these  images  could  be  turned  into  facts  ;  but 
let  me  hint  to  you,  that  the  very  exhibitors  of  these 
delectable  fabrications  out  of  air  would  scorn  your 
folly  in  expecting  any  such  realization-  They  would 
tell  you,  deriding  your  simplicity,  that  the  shows 
which  enchant  you  so  much  are  the  creation  of  their 
genius^  exerted  to  a  much  finer  purpose  than  that  of 
representing  an  actual  or  even  possible  order  of 
things  5  that  they  consciously  and  intentionally  aban- 
don the  ground  on  which  plain  mortality  must  toil 
along  through  ordinary  good  and  evil,  to  range 
among  imaginary  elements,  obsequious  to  their  will. 
Ludicrous  and  juvenile  indeed,  they  would  say, 
must  be  the  credulity  of  any  one  sitting  out  to  find 
somewhere,  as  a  fact,  what  it  requires  the  utmost  of 
their  inventive  power  but  to  figure  out  in  fiction. 
And  you  may  perceive,  if  you  have  any  sober  ob- 
servation, that  no  such  felicity,  wrought  out  of  the 
mere  materials  of  this  world,  is  actually  in  the  pos- 
session of  any  of  its  inhabitants — its  youthful  inhabi- 
tants, I  mean ;  for  yourselves  will  readily  allow, 
that  those  of  them  who  are  grown  old,  and  are  going 
to  leave  it,  must  have  a  hopeless  task  in  striving  to 
make  it  yield  them  happiness,  when  it  is  shaking 
themselves  off;  shaking  them  off  who  have  expend- 
ed their  life  in  idolizing  it,  and  are  clinging  to  it  in 
the  forlorn  condition  of  feeling  no  hope  or  attrac- 
tion toward  a  better. 


OF  RELIGION.  63 

You  do  not  deserve  to  know  how  to  be  happy, 
even  in  this  hfe,  if  you  will  not  be  persuaded  to 
make  an  honest  effort  of  comparison  between  any 
scheme  that  would  promise  to  make  you  so  inde- 
pendently of  religion,  and  the  felicity  which  would 
attend  a  religious  course,  commencing  in  youth. 

Do  not  think  to  defend  yourself  by  saying,  that 
the  representation  how  happy  a  youthful  spirit  might 
be  in  a  devotement  to  religion,  is  greatly  exaggerat- 
ed. Besides  that  in  theory  it  is  evidently  in  the 
nature  of  that  great  cause,  and  in  the  gracious  de- 
sign and  promise  of  Him  from  whom  it  descended, 
that  it  should  confer  advantages  surpassing  all  others, 
you  should  be  willing  to  receive  testimony  as  to  the 
fact,  fi'om  those  who  have  gone  effectually  into  the 
experiment.  And  you  know,  that  they  whom  you 
verily  believe  to  have  made  the  most  competent  trial, 
are  the  most  decided,  though  not  boastful,  in  their 
declarations;  and  that  the  tenor  of  their  deportment 
proves  their  sincerity.  Observe  some  of  those  young 
persons,  (I  hope  you  are  not  so  unfortunate  as  not  to 
know  such,)  whom  you  yourself  believe  to  be  most 
fully  under  the  power  of  religion  ;  call  them,  if  you 
will,  its  prisoners,  its  bondmen,  its  slaves  ;  some  of 
your  gay  companions  attempt  to  ridicule  them  as  its 
fools ;  but  do  you  observe  whether  their  piety  con- 
duces to  their  happiness.  It  is  true,  they  are  not 
happy  after  the  manner  in  which  your  lighter  friends 
account  of  happiness ;  not  happy,  if  the  true  signs 
of  that  state  be  a  volatile  spirit,  a  continual  glitter  of 
mirth,  a  dissipation  of  mind  and  time   among  trifles, 


64  THE     IMPORTANCE 

a  dread  of  reflection  and  solitude,  an  eager  pursuit 
of  amusements  ;  in  short,  a  prevailing  thoughtless- 
ness, the  chief  suspensions  of  which  are  for  the 
study  of  matters  of  appearance  and  fashion,  the 
servile  care  of  faithfully  imitating  the  habits  and  no- 
tions of  a  class,  or  perhaps  the  acquirement  of  ac- 
complishments for  show.  It  must  be  confessed, 
they  have  thoughts  too  grave,  the  sense  of  too 
w^eighty  an  interest,  a  conscience  too  solicitous,  and 
purposes  too  high,  to  permit  them  any  rivalry  with 
the  votaries  of  such  felicity.  Certainly  they  feel  a 
dignity  in  their  vocation,  which  denies  them  the 
pleasure  of  being  frivolous.  But  you  will  see  them 
often  cheerful,  and  sometimes  very  animated.  And 
their  animation  is  of  a  deeper  tone  than  that  of  your 
sportive  creatures  ;  it  may  have  less  of  animal  brisk- 
ness, but  there  is  more  soul  in  it.  It  is  the  action 
and  fire  of  the  greater  passions,  directed  to  greater 
objects.  Their  emotions  are  more  internal  and  cor- 
dial ;  they  can  be  cherished  and  abide  within  the 
heart,  with  a  prolonged,  deep,  vital  glow  ;  while 
those  which  spring  in  the  youthful  minds  devoid  of 
reflection  and  religion,  seem  to  give  no  pleasure  but 
in  being  thrown  off"  in  volatile  spirits  at  the  sur- 
face. Did  you  think  that  these  disciples  of  religion 
must  renounce  the  love  of  pleasure  't  Look,  then, 
at  their  policy  for  securing  it.  The  most  unfortu- 
nate calculation  for  pleasure  is  to  live  expressly  for 
it ;  they  live  primarily  for  duty,  and  pleasure  comes 
as  a  certain  consequence.  If  you  have  but  a  cold 
apprehension  of  the  degree   of  such  pleasure,   if  you 


OF   RELIGION'.  05 

can   but  faintly  conceive  how  it  should  be  poignant, 
you  can  at  least  understand  that  it  must  be  genuine. 
And  there  is  in  it  what  may  be  called   a   principal  of 
accumulation  ;  it  does  not  vanish   in   the  enjoyment, 
but,  while  passing  as   a  sentiment,  remains  as   a   re- 
flection, and  grows  into  a  store   of  complacent  con- 
sciousness, which  the  mind   retains  as  a  possession 
left  by  what  has  been  possessed.     To  have    had  such 
pleasure  is   pleasure,  and  is    so  still    the   more,  the 
more  of  it  is   past.     Whereas  you  are  aware,   if  you 
have  been  at  all  observant  of  the   feelings  betraved 
by  the  youthful  children   of  folly,  in  the  intervals  of 
their  delights,  (and  does  nothing  in  your  own  expe- 
rience obtrude  the  same  testimony  r)  tliat   those  de- 
lights,  v.'hen  past,   are  wholly    gone,  leaving  nothing 
to    go    into  a    calm  habitual   sense  of  being  happy. 
The  pleasure  is   a  blaze  which  consumes  entirely  the 
meterial  on  which  it   is  lighted.     So   that  the  uncal- 
culating  youth,   who  seized  a  transient  pleasure   last 
week,    or  yesterday,  has  no   satisfaction    from  it  to- 
day ;  but  rather,  perhaps,  feels   fretted  with  a  sense 
of  being  cheated,  and   left  in  an   irksome  vacancy, 
from    which    he  has   no  relief  but  in  recovering  his 
eagerness   to  pursue  another,   which   is  in  the    same 
manner  to  pass  entirely  away.     And    observe,  this  is 
the  description  of  the  unenviable  kind    of  felicity  of 
the  less  criminal    class  of  the   young  persons  desti- 
tute of  religion  ;  it  represents  the  condition  of  those 
who  surrender  their  spirits  and  life  to  vain   and  tri- 
fling interests,   as  distinguished  from  the  grosser  evil 


66  THE    IMPORTANCE 

which  we  denominate  vice.  To  insist  that  religion 
is  better  than  ihat,  as  productive  of  happiness  in  this 
life,  would  seem  but  an  impertinent  pleading  in  its 
favour. 

Now  be,  for  once,  a  thoughtful  and  serious  being, 
willing  to   apprehend   the   contrast  between   all  this 
and  the  state  of  a  young  person  who  feels  a  profound 
invariable   conviction    that  he    has  made   the    right 
choice  ;  who  finds  that   his  grand   purpose  will   bear 
the  severest   exercise  of  his  judgment,  and  pleases 
him  the  most  when  he  judges  the  most  rigorously  ; 
who  feels  an  elation   of  spirit  in  vowing  an  eternal 
fidelity  to   his  object ;  who  beholds  it  undiminished 
in  excellence,  if  there  come  a  season  of  gloom  over 
his  other  interests  and  prospects,  when   it  proves  to 
be  not  a  thing  of  mere  splendid  colours,  which  vanish 
in  a  deepening  shade,  but  of  intrinsic  lustre,  a  lumi- 
nary which  shines  through,  and  shines   the  brighter 
for,  the  darkness.     Not   that  this  youth   makes  any 
pretension  to  be  a  stoic  philosopher,  serenely  inde- 
pendent of  the  temporal  good  and  evil  attending   or 
awaiting  his   progress  into  life,  w^ith  no  warm  affec- 
tions to  the  things   in  the  scene   around  him,  to  be 
painfully  mortified  when  adverse  events  and  influen- 
ces  frustrate   his  hopes   and   projects.     But  his  ad- 
vantage over  those  of  his  coevals  who  have  no  better 
than  such  interests,  is,  that  he  has  enshrined  his  best 
affections  in  that  one  thing  which  does  not  partake 
of  mortality  and  this  world's  uncertainty,  and  there- 
fore but  evinces  its  worthiness  the  more  under  the 
failure  of  every  thing  else  that  can  fail.     It  is,  like 


OF    RELIGION.  67 

Him  who  is  its  author  and  guardian,  "  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever."  The  pious  youth, 
then,  is  not  abandoned,  for  his  chief  enjoyment,  to 
an  endless  fluctuation,  alternating  between  delight 
and  disgust,  eager  to  seize,  and  wondering  that  the 
possession  turns  so  soon  to  nothing ;  all  the  while 
neglecting,  or  fearful  to  reflect,  whether  the  whole 
plan  be  not  essentially  wrong  ;  and  thus  fulfilling  the 
decree,  that  "  to  him  that  trusteth  in  vanity,  vanity 
shall  be  the  recompense." 

Be  assured  there  are  young  persons  who  can 
testify  that  this  is  their  own  experience  of  the  hap- 
piness of  religion,  in  so  considerable  a  degree  as  to 
inspire  an  earnest  wish  to  become  more  completely 
possessed  by  its  power,  from  the  conviction  that  then 
they  should  be  much  happier  still.  And  now  do  not 
let  your  mind  evade  the  question,  whether  they 
would  not  be  right  in  the  feeling,  that  they  would  not 
for  all  the  world  be  in  the  condition  of  those  who 
never  think  of  religion  but  as  the  enemy  of  youthful 
happiness.  Some  of  them  can  well  remember 
when  they  were  themselves  in  that  condition  ;  and 
they  would  at  any  time  prefer  instant  death  to  the 
calamity  of  relapsing  into  it.  No  wonder,  then,  if 
you  perceive  them  holding  extremely  light  the  opin- 
ion of  those,  too  many  of  their  own  age,  who  can 
look  on  them  with  a  propensity  to  ridicule,  or  an 
affectation  of  pity. 

And,  tell  me,  what  do  you  think  of  such  judges  ? 
I  conjecture  you  may  have  been  under  no  small  in- 
fluence of  the  opinions  of  some  rather  like  them,  and 


G8  THE    IMPORTANCE 

would  have  deemed  it  a  sad  misfortune  to  be  dis- 
countenanced in  their  community,  or  excluded  from 
it  by  their  aversion.  But  at  what  rate  do  you  really 
estimate  their  judgment  f  If  they  were  to  tell  you, 
plainly,  that  it  is  needless  and  unseasonable  in  youth 
to  consider  deeply  of  the  best  use  of  life,  with  refer- 
ence to  both  its  continuance  and  conclusion  ;  to  begin 
the  expending  of  your  time  with  a  careful  estimate 
of  its  value  ;  to  feel  the  importance  of  your  immor- 
tal nature,  and  be  solicitous  for  its  welfare  ;  to  seek, 
as  the  highest  good,  the  favour  of  the  Almighty  ;  in 
short,  to  begin  well,  that  you  may  go  on  well,  and 
end  well, — if  they  were  expressly  to  tell  you  so,  as 
their  opinion,  what  would  you  think  their  opinion 
worth  ?  And  should  you  not  be  ashamed  of  what- 
ever it  was  in  your  mind  that  could  give  that  opinion 
any  weight  with  you  ?  Think  how  it  should  be  pos- 
sible for  you  to  feel,  for  a  moment,  any  thing  but 
contempt  or  pity  for  their  very  understanding.  But 
if  they  did  not  tell  you  so,  and  could  not  deny  thr.t 
the  contrary  is  true,  what  should  you  account  of  their 
conscience,  their  practical  principle  ?  Or,  if  they 
never  reflected  enough  to  have  any  opinion  at  all  of 
the  matter,  what  should  you  deem  of  them  altogeth- 
er, as  authorities  and  examples  f 

Perhaps  your  plea  would  be,  that  they  are  never- 
theless, full  of  vivacity,  pleasant  and  joyous  ;  and 
that  you  must  confess  this  captivates  you  so,  that 
you  have  not  thought  of  any  such  grave  affair  as  that 
of  thus  taking  account  of  them.  But,  while  you 
plead  so,  you  know   how  flimsy  is  the   consistence  of 


OF    RELIGION.  G9 

this  joyous  mood  of  theirs,  and  by  what  means  you 
could  instantly  break  it  up.  It  is  like  that  thin 
slime  of  variegated  hues  which  you  sometimes  see 
spread  on  the  surface  of  polluted  water,  and  which 
you  can  disperse  into  fragments  by  throwing  in  a 
twig  or  stone.  When  they  are  at  the  highest  pitch 
of  their  spirits,  and  apparently  "  shut  up  in  measure- 
less content,"  you  have  but  just  to  mention  the  doom 
we  are  all  under  to  die  ;  to  name  some  young  per- 
son of  their  acquaintance  who  lately  died,  perhaps 
in  great  distress  and  alarm  for  having  been  thought- 
less like  them  ;  or  to  make  an  allusion  to  the  final 
account, — "  For  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee 
into  judgment ;" — you  have  but  to  do  this,  and  you 
will  quench,  for  the  time,  all  their  animation,  and 
will  see  wiiat  awkward  efforts  they  will  have  to  make 
for  its  recovery.  But,  then,  when  you  would  plead, 
Why  should  you  not  be  allowed  to  have,  free  and 
unalloyed,  the  pleasure  of  your  youth  with  and  like  so 
many  of  your  age,  and  be  innocently  happy  though 
without  religion — does  not  your  conscience  smite 
you  at  the  reflection,  that  you  are  coveting  the  par- 
ticipation of  a  happinss  which,  in  its  liveliest  hour, 
ten  words,  or  five,  would  suffice  to  dash  ;  and  those 
words  no  other  than  such  as  every  young  person 
should  often  hear,  and  with  a  serious  thought  of 
their  import  ? 

There  is  but  one  topic  more  on  which  I  will  ex- 
postulate with  you.  Perhaps  you  will  say  that  your 
neglect  of  religion  is  only  deferring  it;  that  you  are 
sensible  it   is   a  concern  which  you  imist  attend  to^ 


70  THE      IMPORTANCE 

sometime,  and  that  you  are  fully  resolved  to  do  so 
in  maturer  or  advanced  life.  And  are  you  saying 
this  with  the  images  before  your  mind  of  one,  and 
another,  and  still  another,  within  the  circle  of  your 
knowledge,  whom  you  have  seen  cut  off  in  youth  ? 
Go,  stand  by  their  graves  and  repeat  it  there ; 
for  there  is  folly  in  it,  if  you  could  not  on  those  spots 
repeat  it  with  undisturbed  assurance.  Say,  over 
those  dead  forms,  now  out  of  sight,  but  which  you 
can  so  well,  in  memory,  recall,  such  as  you  saw 
them,  alert,  and  blooming,  and  smiling,  say  there  de- 
liberately, that  you  know  not  why  you  should  not  be 
quite  at  your  ease  in  delaying  to  some  future  distant 
time  your  application  to  that,  without  which  you  be- 
lieve it  to  be  a  fearful  thing  to  pass  out  of  life.  It 
is  possible  that  some  one  of  them,  in  approaching 
the  last  hour,  expressed  or  conveyed  to  you  an  ear- 
nest admotion  on  this  subject,  conjuring  you,  in 
the  name  of  a  friend  dying  in  youth,  to  beware  of 
the  guilt  and  hazard  of  delay.  If  so,  go  to  the 
grave  of  that  one  especially,  and  there  pronounce, 
that  an  impertinence  was  uttered  at  a  season  when 
every  sentence  ought  to  be  the  voice  of  wisdom, 
Say,  "I  am  wiser  in  this  carelessness  of  my  spirit, 
than  thou  wast  in  the  very  solemnity  of  death.  " 
Why  should  you  shrink  at  the  idea  of  doing  this  ^ 
And  if  you  dare  not  do  it,  what  verdict  are  you  ad- 
mitting, by  implication,  as  the  just  one  to  be  pro- 
nounced on  your  conduct  ^ 

But  perhaps  you   are   ready  to  reply,  that  this  is 
pushing  the  argument  beyond  its  real  strength ;  for 


OF     RELIGION.  71 

that  I  seem  to  be  assuming  it  as  probable  that  your 
life  will  terminate  in  youth  ;  whereas,  judging  from 
a  collective  account  of  the  actual  duration  of  lives, 
I  must  know  this  is  not  the  probability.  Just  so, 
no  doubt,  in  reference  to  themselves,  thought  they 
whom  you  have  seen  vanish  in  their  early  day.  And 
a  few  examples,  or  even  one,  of  the  treacherous- 
ness  of  the  calculation,  should  suffice  to  w^arn  you 
not  to  hazard  any  thing  of  great  moment  on  so  men- 
acing an  uncertainty.  For,  in  all  reason,  when  an 
infinitely  important  interest  is  depending,  a  mere 
possibility  that  your  allotment  may  prove  to  be  like 
theirs,  is  to  be  held  of  far  greater  weight  on  the  one 
side,  than  the  alleged  probability  of  the  contrary  is 
on  the  other.  The  posibility  of  dying  unprepared, 
takes  all  the  value  from  even  the  highest  probability 
that  there  will  be  prolonged  time  to  prepare  :  plainly 
because  there  is  no  proportion  between  the  fearful- 
ness  of  such  a  hazard  and  the  precariousness  of  such 
a  dependence.  So  that  one  day  of  the  certain  ha- 
zard may  be  safely  asserted  to  be  a  greater  thing 
against  you,  than  whole  imaginary  years,  promised 
you  by  the  probability,  ought  to  be  accounted  of 
value /or  you. 

In  minor  concerns,  there  may  be  purposes  not  im- 
properly formed  by  a  healthy  young  person,  which, 
though  he  could  effect  them  now,  he  may  defer  upon 
a  calculation  of  protracted  life  ;  because  the  degree 
of  probability  that  this  life  will  be  protracted  may  be 
equal  to  any  degree  of  importance  or  urgency  that 
there  is  in  the  design  ;  so  that  he  may  be  content  to 


tZ  THE    DIPORTAXCE 

refer  and  trust  it  to  that  degree  of  probability,  say- 
ing thus, — I  reckon  on  accomplishing  such  a  pur- 
pose, if  my  life  be  prolonged.  Or  in  other  words, 
it  is  such  a  design  that,  in  the  event  of  his  life  not 
being  so  prolonged,  it  will  be  no  serious  misfortune 
not  to  have  accomplished  it  at  all.  He  may  be  con- 
tent to  hold,  as  thus  dependent  on  the  contingency 
of  lengthened  life,  a  purpose,  for  example,  of  visiting 
some  foreign  country,  of  seeking  a  more  agreeable 
locality  to  reside  in,  of  acquiring  some  particular 
branch  of  not  absolutely  indispensable  knowledge  ; 
and  so  of  many  other  things.  The  object  may  be 
of  as  much  less  than  the  highest  necessity  to  him, 
as  he  possesses  less  than  a  certainty  of  long  surviv- 
ing his  youth.  But  when  you  acknowledge  a  con- 
cern to  be  all-important,  and  that  a  failure  in  it 
would  be  immeasurably  disastrous,  and  avow  a  pur- 
pose not  to  fail  in  it,  and  yet  can  deliberately  consign 
this  purpose  for  its  accomplishment  to  a  contingent 
futurity,  confidently  reckoning  on  years  which  you 
confess  may  never  be  yours,  as  an  adequate  provis- 
ion for  it  in  reserve,  this  is,  indeed  my  young  friend  it 
is,  the  worst  insanity,  because  a  criminal  one.  When 
the  concern  is  so  momentous,  and  any  hazard  from 
delay  so  formidable,  this  supposed  probability  of 
your  life  being  prolonged  should  not  be  taken  as 
more  worth  than  it  may  prove  to  be  worth.  And 
what  would  it  prove  to  be  worth,  in  the  event  of 
your  being,  in  this  prime  of  your  life,  attacked  sud- 
denly by  an  illness  threcttening  to  be  mortal  ^ 


OF    RELIGION.  73 

Do  not  trifle  with  the  matter  so  wretchedly  and 
wickedly  as  to  say,  that,  even  in  that  event,  perhaps 
you  may  have  time  allowed  you  for  redeeming  what 
you  are  now  wilfully. losing,  and  for  securing  the 
safety  of  the  great  interest.  Perhaps  may  !  why, 
this  plainly  means  that  you  may  not.  But  even  if 
such  an  undeserved  indulgence  should  be  granted, 
and  your  perverse  will  be  suddenly  transformed  to 
make  the  utmost  use  of  it,  are  you  not  at  this  mo- 
ment infallibly  certain  that  it  would  be  a  cause  of 
inexpressible  grief  to  you  to  have  made  nothing  of 
life,  for  its  grand  purpose,  till  ow  the  point  of  breath- 
ing its  last  f  Besides,  that  a  consideration  of  what 
is  the  merely  natural  effeot  of  the  dread  of  death, 
might  justly  throw  a  painful  uncertainty  on  the  genu- 
ineness of  the  principle  which  excited  your  solici- 
tudes and  efforts.  Besides,  too,  that  you  are  per- 
fectly aware  severe  illness  is  a  situation  to  the  last 
degree  unadapted  to  hard  exercise  of  mind. 

If  you  can  give  your  attention  for  a  while  to  such 
representations,  and  still  feel  that  you  dare  consign 
your  most  momentous  interest  to  take  the  chance,  if 
I  may  express  it  so,  of  your  having  time  for  it  long 
after  the  season  of  youth,  and  can  look  undisturbed, 
undismayed,  at  the  uncertainty  where  you  shall  be 
when  the  time  so  reckoned  upon  shall  arrive,  it 
seems  almost  in  vain  to  reason  with  you  any  further  ; 
except  entreating  you  to  turn  one  reflection  on  the 
state  of  that  mind  with  which  it  is  in  vain  to  reason 
to  iBUch  a  purpose.  Nevertheless,  there  are  con- 
7 


74  THE     IMPORTANCE 

siderations  which  might  be  enforced  upon  you,  even 
though  you  could  have  every  degree  of  assurance, 
short  of  absolute  certainty,  that  a  time  far  off  in 
prospect  will  be  yours  in  this,  life. — I  am  supposing, 
all  the  while,  that  you  really  do  intend,  or  think  you 
intend,  to  apply  yourself  in  earnest  to  the  supreme 
concern  at  a  more  advanced  period  of  your  days. 

It  has  been  already  enough  insisted  on,  that  reli- 
gion would  make  you  far  happier  than  any  thing  you 
can  enjoy  in  the  neglect  of  it,  during  youth  itself, 
considered  as  one  distinct  stage  ;  but  I  would  now 
speak  of  it  as  connected  with  the  whole  of  life,  al- 
lowing you  to  assume,  if  you  will,  that  your  life  is  to 
reach  the  full  term  of  the  aoje  of  man. 

You  say  this  protracted  liJ^  must  and  shall  event- 
ually be  religious,  confessing  that  otherwise  all 
would  be  wrong.  What  do  you  mean  by  its  being 
religious  f  If  you  have  any  just  conception  of  the 
nature  of  religion,  while  you  are  resolving  that  your 
life  shall  sometime  assume  that  character,  you  are 
resolving  it  shall  then  be  service  to  God.  But,  now, 
v/hat  claims  can  there  be,  that  he  will  have  on  any 
later  portion  of  your  life,  but  has  not  on  this  earlier  ? 
Answer  your  conscience  luhy  it  should  be  a  duty  to 
serve  him  then,  if  it  be  no  duty  now.  What  is  to 
bring  you  under  an  obligation  from  which  you  are 
now  exempt  ?  Is  it  that  you  will  then  be  more 
dependent  on  him,  or  subsist  more  entirely  on  his 
bounty,  or  be  more  immediately  and  constantly  in 
his  presence  ^  Or  is  it  that  you  will  have  more 
»if^our  and  liberty  for  his  service  ;  that  you  will  have 


OP    RELIGION.  75 

less  to  do  with  the  cares  and  grievances  of  the  world  f 
Or  is  it  that  he  has,  in  the  communications  of  his 
will,  less  expressly  required  the  services  of  youth, 
than  of  more  advanced  age  ;  giving,  by  implication, 
a  license  to  youthful  spirits  to  forget  him,  and  to 
take  favours  most  largely  at  his  hands,  on  an  under- 
standing that  there  is  to  be  no  present  return  ?  No  ; 
you  readily  say  that  all  this  is  absurdity.  You  do 
not  deny,  that  there  extends  over  your  whole  life 
one  grand  obligation  of  service  to  God  ;  only,  you 
have  your  own  purposes  to  serve,  and  he  must  wait ! 
He  has  given  you,  for  cultivation,  a  small  tract  of 
life,  of  time,  on  which  you  might  raise  precious 
things  for  offerings  to  him ;  when  you  have  ex- 
hausted its  best  faculties  of  production  to  gratify 
yourself,  you  will  resign  to  him  what  it  may  be 
made  to  yield  when  reduced  to  the  condition  of  ster- 
ility and  weeds.  But  supposing  you  should  become 
truly  religious  in  the  latter  part  of  life,  you  can  even 
now  understand,  that  the  very  emphasis  and  intensity 
of  the  convictions  of  that  new  state  of  mind  will  be 
to  feel  how  absolute  was  the  duty,  and  how  sublime 
would  have  been  the  happiness,  of  devoting  every 
stage  of  life  to  the  service  of  God.  What,  then, 
will  be  the  reflections  with  which  conscience  will 
sting  you,  for  having  expended  the  most  animated 
part  of  it  on  the  principle,  that  what  would  be  gained 
to  him,  would  be  lost  to  you  ? 

Again,  when  you  are  making  to  yourself  these 
promises,  that  you  certainly  will  sometime,  in  a 
yet  distant  part  of  life,  apply  yourself   seriously  to 


76 


THE    IMPORTANCE 


religion,  you  must  mean,  that  you  will  make  it  an 
earnest  concern  that  your  spirit,  by  that  time  ad- 
vanced far  toward  the  conclusion  of  its  sojourn  on 
earth,  may  attain  a  prepared  state  for  removing  to 
a  superior  and  permanent  scene  of  existence.  This 
«>  what  you  mean,  is  it  not?  But  then  how  can  it 
be,  that  you  are  not  struck  with  a  sense  of  some- 
thing flagrantly  absurd,  in  a  plan  of  excluding  from 
all  but  the  latter  portion  of  life,  an  aifair  standing  re- 
lated to  so  mighty  a  consequence  ?  Think  of  that 
existence  during  endless  ages,  an  existence  to  com- 
mence in  a  condition,  determined  for  happiness  or 
misery,  by  the  state  of  mind  which  shall  have  been 
formed  in  this  introductory  period.  And  is  this 
the  single  case  in  which  all  rules  o^  proportion  may> 
without  absurdity,  and  with  impunity,  be  set  aside  ? 
You  intend,  I  will  suppose,  to  apply  as  much  as  a 
few  years,  somewhere  yonder  in  the  decline  of  life, 
to  this  great  business  of  preparation  ;  that  is  to  say, 
as  much  of  the  time  within  those  years  as  will  not 
be  inevitably  consumed  by  worldly  cares  and  atten- 
tion to  your  infirmities.  That  is  the  measure  of 
time  to  be  placed  over  against  the  immense  futurity  I 
Behold  those  two,  presented  in  such  a  relation. 
Look  at  that  ocean,  and  at  the  competence  of  the 
time  to  prepare  a  vessel  for  launching  upon  it.  Set 
the  poor  fragments  of  weeks  and  months  in  the 
years  so  appropriated  in  your  determination,  set 
them  in  your  view,  against  the  ensuing  millions  of 
years  or  ages.  Have  you  no  perception  of  a  fright- 
ful disproportion  f' 


OF    RELIGION.  77 

If  you   attempt    an   evasion   by  saying,  but  what 
would  be   the  whole  of  this   short  life  employed  in 
preparation,   as  set   against   that  futurity  ? — the    an- 
swer is,  that  the  whole  term  of  life,  diminutive  as  it 
is  for  a  preparatory  introduction  to  that  stupendous 
sequel,  is  what  our  Creator  has  allotted  to  us,  leav- 
ing to  us  no  responsibility  that  it  is  not  longer,  and 
is  therefore  a  space  of  time  which   his  blessing  can 
render  competent  to  the  great  purpose  ;  but  you  are 
presuming  to  take   a  difl^erent   and  exceedingly  di- 
minished  measure,  on  your  own   responsibility  ;  ap- 
portioning oft',  as  an  adequate  space  for  the  prepara- 
tion, a  small  section  only  of  what  he  has  assigned 
for   it.     This    is,  in   eftect,    telling   him   that   a   far 
shorter  time   than  the  short  one  which  he  has  allot- 
ted for  the  purpose,  will  be  quite  enough  for  it ;  and 
demanding  of  him  that  his  blessing  shall  be  confer- 
red on  this  arbitrary  unsactioned  adjustment  of  your 
own,  so   as   to  make   a  shorter  time  suffice  for  the 
object,   than  that  which   he   has  appointed  and    re- 
quired   to  be   devoted  to  its  accomplishment.     But 
turn   your   thoughts    upon  your  conduct,  to   reflect 
what  an  act  of  reason  you  are  performing  when  you 
say.  The  w^hole  of  the  time  which  God  has  assigned 
for  a  preparation   to  enter  happily  on  an  eternal  ex- 
istence is  very  short,    and  therefore  a  much  shorter 
is  sufficient ! 

And  reflect  what  an  estimate  you  are   entertaining 
of  both  the  nature   and  importance  of  that  prepara- 
tion, while  you  can  in  ease  or  gaiety  see  one  month 
7* 


78  THE     IMPORTANCE 

and  year  after  another  passing  away,  and  anticipate 
that  many  more  will  pass,  without  contributing  to  it 
one  particle.  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  to  be 
learned,  whatever  discipline  to  be  applied,  whatever 
habits  to  be  formed,  whatever  communications  with 
heaven  to  be  opened  and  maintained,  and  whatever 
may  be  lost,  and  whatever  guilt  may  be  incurred,  by 
neglecting  all  this,  still,  this  year,  and  many  more 
yet  to  come,  can  well  be  spared  from  the  concern, 
and  surrendered  wholly  to  any  other  demands. 
You  can  account  with  yourself  that  it  is  so  much, 
and  so  much  more,  gained  to  your  temporary  inter- 
ests, and  lost  only  to  the  process  for  raising  you  to 
the  eternal  ones.  At  the  end  of  one  of  these  peri- 
ods you  have  to  reflect,  a  year  of  the  prime  and 
vigour  of  my  life  has  passed  in  a  lively  career,  and 
is  gone  to  be  mine  no  more  ;  it  might  have  effected 
for  me,  and  left  me  possessing,  something  of  inesti- 
mable value  toward  what  I  own  to  be  tho  supreme- 
ly important  business  of  my  life  ;  but  it  has  left  me 
nothing.  When  I  shall  be  constrained,  at  length,  to 
apply  myself  to  that  business  with  all  my  might,  I 
shall  have  to  remember  this  year,  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  there  is  not  with  me  one  advantage  deriv- 
ed from  it  in  aid  of  my  new  and  difficult  undertak- 
ing ;  that,  as  relative  to  that  concern,  it  was,  by  my 
own  determination,  flung  with  all  its  rich  possibilities 
out  of  my  existence  ;  that  I  shall  have  no  benefit 
from  it  to  all  eternity.  You  will  have  to  reflect — I 
decided  that  the  latter  part  of  my  life  was  all  I  would 
give  to   the   great  affair;  I  have   accomplished   my 


Of   religion.  79 

determination  by  alienating  from  it  the  finest  portion 
of  my  life  ;  I  advance  to  old  age,  to  death,  to  judg- 
ment, to  eternity,  under  the  voluntary  loss ;  and 
whether,  with  the  impoverished  resources  of  this  late 
remainder  of  my  time,  I  shall  succeed  or  fail  in  the 
grand  work,  I  shall  for  ever  have  to  remember,  that 
I  have  not  thought  it  worth  appropriating  to  it  my 
most  valuable  years. 

So  you  will  have  to  reflect.  But  now  is  the  time 
in  which  you  are  actually  doing  that  on  which  you 
will  have  so  to  reflect ;  you  are  deliberately  and 
daily  adding  something  toward  your  being  placed 
in  that  predicament.  It  is  pressed  upon  you  as  the 
plainest  truth  in  the  world,  that  you  ought  to  be, 
through  the  largest  possible  extent  of  your  allotted 
time  on  earth,  in  a  state  adapted  to  an  endless  life  ; 
and  you  resolve,  and  act  on  your  resolution,  not 
to  be  in  that  state  during  many  years  of  this  intro- 
duction. You  lay  a  resolute  hand  on  this  invaluable 
portion,  to  withhold  and  defend  it  against  the  claims 
of  that  sovereign  interest,  practically  pronouncing  it 
better,  that  the  commencing  and  animated  stage  of 
your  existence  should  be  alienated  from  all  advan- 
tageous connexion  with  the  grand  whole ;  that  it 
should  not  conduce  to  final  good ;  that  it  should  be 
forever  lost  as  to  all  tha|;  is  to  follow.  Let  it  be 
enough,  you  seem  to  say,  that  the  endless  life  to 
which  I  am  appointed  and  advancing,  shall  have,  as 
I  do  intend,  a  small  part  of  this  introductory  one 
yielded  to  a  conformity  with  the  solemnity  of  its 
character,  and  applied  to  secure  its  happiness ;  and 


80  THE  IMPORTANCE 

if  its  importance  would  insist  on  more,  I  will  resist 
the  encroachment.  No  authority  of  its  requirement 
shall  wrest  from  me  the  liberty,  of  casting  as  much 
as  I  please  of  this  precious  part  of  my  time  into  an 
abyss,  never  to  emerge  in  wealth  or  pleasure  to  me 
in  futurity.  And  whatever  that  futurity  of  exist- 
ence may  be  the  poorer  or  the  worse  for  so  much 
lost  to  it,  I  am  content  to  stand  in  my  lot.  My 
choice  is  rather  to  feel  how  much  has  been  lost  to 
my  welfare  then,  than  to  forego  the  pleasure  of  fol- 
lowing my  inclinations  now. 

And  yet,  at  this  very  time,  at  any  time,  you  will 
acknowledge  that  the  interest  of  that  futurity  is  the 
transcendent  one,  that  it  is  vast  and  eternal,  that  it 
is  critically  depending,  and  that  it  is  your  own.  O 
what  trivial  things  are  the  most  lofty  and  solemn 
words,  or  their  import  either,  to  a  mind  that  will  not 
reflect,  or  cannot  feel ! 

If,  nevertheless,  you  are  still  positive  in  the  reso- 
lution that  you  will  devote  your  attention  to  religion 
at  a  more  advanced  period,  I  would  represent  to  you 
that  what  you  are  meanwhile  losing,  is  not  merely 
so  much  time.  You  deem  there  is  a  peculiar  value 
and  charm  in  this  prime  of  your  life,  so  that  you  re- 
joice you  are  not  old  nor  middle-aged.  You  do  so 
even  independently  of  any  direct  thought  of  being 
so  much  further  off*  from  the  latter  end.  And  what 
is  this  so  valued  peculiarity  of  youth  ^  Doubtless 
it  is  the  plenitude  of  life,  the  vigour  and  elasticity  of 
body  and  mind,  the  quickness  of  apprehension,  the 
liveliness  of  emotion,  the  energy  of  impulse  to  ex- 


OP    RELIGION.  81 

periment  and  daring.  Now,  consider  under  what 
signal  advantage,  with  respect  to  the  subsequent 
progress,  religion  would  commence  its  course  in  the 
strenijth  of  these  animated  forces.  It  would  be  like 
taking  a  steed  of  fire  for  some  noble  enterprize, 
instead  of  one  already  tamed  with  time  and  labour, 
or  nearly  worn  down.  You  would  thus  be  borne 
onward  a  great  length  before  the  vigour  of  nature 
begins  to  remit,  and  would  have  acquired  a  princi- 
ple of  impulsion  to  advance,  after  that  peculiar  vigour 
should  have  ceased.  Your  youth  at  leaving  you 
would  seem  to  send  its  spirit  forward  with  you.  The 
religious  career  thus  commencing  would  have  all 
the  advantage  which  a  stream,  of  vast  length  of 
course,  acquires  from  rising,  and  running  its  first 
stage,  on  the  slope  of  a  lofty  mountain,  as  compared 
with  that  which  is  put  in  motion  on  a  tract  little  bet- 
ter than  flat,  and  creeps  heavily  on  for  want  of  such 
an  impulse  from  its  origin.  So  important  is  it  to  the 
Progress  of  religion,  that  it  should  have  the  utmost 
benefit  from  its  Rise. 

Again,  consider  that  a  person  prosecuting,  in  ad- 
vanced life,  a  course  which  he  deeply  approves,  has 
a  peculiar  pleasure  in  recollecting  it  as  having  been 
also  the  favourite  interest  of  his  youth  ;  a  pleasure 
additional  to  that  of  knowing  that  his  early  life  was 
not  thrown  away.  For,  all  the  pleasing  associations 
of  that  season  adhere  and  impart  their  charm  to  that 
which  continues  the  approved  favourite  still.  There 
is  the  memory  of  departed  friends,  the  coeval  or 
elder  associates  and  promoters   of  his  youthful  piety, 


82  THE    IMPORTANCE 

his  allies  in  the  best  cause,  whose  images  in  some 
solitary  hour  seem  to  smile  on  him  from  the  past,  or 
from  heaven.  The  remembered  conscientious  ef- 
forts and  vows  of  self-dedication  augment  his  satis- 
faction in  that  which  he  still  feels  deserved  them  so 
well.  The  animated  emotions,  which  he  may  some- 
times regret  that  he  cannot  now  revive  in  their  vernal 
freshness,  are  still  his,  as  having  been  given  to  that 
which  is  still  his,  to  that  which  has  been  continuous- 
ly his  grand  object.  Thus,  what  is  now  ripening 
into  fruit  he  can  delight  to  recollect  in  the  beauty 
and  fragrance  of  its  blossom.  What  a  difference 
between  this  and  the  feelings  of  a  man  who,  becom- 
ing religious  in  later  life,  finds  himself  by  that  very 
cause  dissevered,  as  it  were,  from  his  youth,  except 
for  painful,  self-reproachful  reflection  ;  who  feels 
that  its  associations,  instead  of  conveying  a  genial 
warmth  to  him  along  an  uninterrupted  train  of  piety 
to  the  present  time,  are  gone  away  in  connexion 
with  what  he  regards  as  the  dishonour  and  calamity 
of  his  existence  ;  like  the  gardens  that  once  were 
on  a  tract  which  a  man  has  lost  from  his  estate  by 
subsidence  into  the  sea. 

But  still  further :  while  you  are  resolving  to  adopt 
the  right  plan  sometime,, and  flattering  yourself  that 
thus  there  will  have  been,  on  the  whole,  and  in  the 
conclusion  of  life's  account,  a  safe  preponderance 
in  favour  of  religion,  you  are  to  be  admonished  that 
the  absence  of  it  in  the  earlier  part  of  life  is  some- 
thing more,  and  worse,  than  simply  so  much  lost  to 
that  account.     It  is  not  only  that  you  are  not  reli- 


OF  RELIGION.  83 

gious  during  the  time  that  you  shall  postpone  that 
concern ;  not  only  that  you  are  rendering  so  much 
of  life,  with  respect  to  that,  a  mere  blank  ;  you  are 
all  the  while  aggravating  the  difficulty,  and  lessening 
the  probability,  of  your  being  religious  at  a  later 
period,  or  ever.  Are  you  so  thoughtless  or  unknow- 
ing as  to  fancy  that  a  long  course  of  estrangement 
from  this  interest,  of  aversion  to  it,  of  resistance 
against  its  claims,  of  suppression  of  the  remonstrances 
of  conscience  in  its  behalf,  is  to  leave  you  in  a  kind 
of  neutral  state,  impartial  to  admit  at  length  the  con- 
viction that  now  it  is  high  time,  and  easily  converti- 
ble into  a  christian  spirit  ?  Consider  that  all  this 
time  you  are  forming  the  habits  which,  when  invete- 
rately  established,  will  either  be  invincibly  upon  you 
through  life,  or  require  a  mighty  wrench  to  emanci- 
pate you.  This  refusal  to  think,  this  revolting  from 
any  attempt  at  self-examination,  this  averting  of  your 
attention  from  serious  books,  this  declining  to  seek 
the  divine  favour  and  assistance  by  prayer,  this  pro- 
jecting of  schemes  bearing  no  regard  to  that  favour, 
and  which  are  not  to  need  that  assistance,  this  eager- 
ness to  seize  each  transitory  pleasure,  this  preference 
of  companions  who  would  like  you  the  worse  if  they 
thought  you  feared  God  or  cared  for  your  eternal 
welfare — these  dispositions,  prolonged  in  a  succes- 
sion of  your  willing  acquiescences  in  them,  will  grow 
into  a  settled  constitution  of  your  soul,  which  will 
thus  become  its  own  inexorable  tyrant.  The  habit 
so  forming  will  draw  into  it  all  the  affections,  the 
workings  of  imagination,  and  the   trains  of  thought. 


84  THE    IMPORTANCE 

will  SO  possess  itself  of  them  that  in  it  alone  they 
will  live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being.  It  will 
have  strong,  unremitting  propensity  to  grow  en- 
tire, so  as  to  leave  nothing  unpreoccupied  in  the 
mind,  for  any  opposing  agent  to  take  hold  on,  in 
order  to  counteract  it ;  as  if  if  were  instinctively 
apprehensive  of  the  effect  of  protests  from  con- 
science, or  visitings  from  the  powers  of  heaven,  or 
intimations  from  the  realm  of  death;  and  therefore 
intent  on  forming  the  sentiments  of  the  soul  to  such 
a  consistence  and  coalition,  as  shall  leave  none  of 
them  free  to  desert  at  the  voice  of  these  summoners. 
And  if  you  would  reflect,  you  would  be  sensible 
thatj  in  effect,  you  ivish  the  case  to  be  just  so.  Do 
not  practice  any  dissimulation  with  yourself  on  the 
subject.  In  making  the  resolution  that  sometime 
(and,  now,  honestly,  is  not  that  a  time  willingly  re- 
garded as  far  off.?)  that  sometime  you  will  apply 
yourself  to  religion,  you  plainly  intend  that  you  will 
not  be  religious,  that  you  will  be  estranged  from  re- 
ligion, till  then.  But,  in  resolving  that  it  shall  not 
command  you,  you  necessarily  must  wish  that  neither 
shall  it  disturb  you.  You  wish  that,  during  all  the 
time,  no  interfering,  opposing,  alarming  principle 
may  abide  in  your  mind  ;  because  you  desire  to  ein- 
joy  fully,  and  in  peace,  the  kind  of  happiness  which 
you  are  to  exclude  religion  in  order  to  enjoy.  You 
are  wishing,  then,  in  effect,  that  your  affections  and 
tastes  may  be  entirely  in  harmony  with  a  system  of 
life  devoid  of  religion,  that  your  judgment  may  ac- 
commodate itself  not  to  condemn  your  proceeding, 


OP  RELIGION.  85 

and  that  your  conscience  should  either  be  beguiled 
to  acquiesce,  or  repose  in  a  long  deep  sleep.  That 
is  to  say,  while  you  are  resolving  that  at  some  ad- 
vanced period  you  will  be  religious,  you  are  also  re- 
solving that,  during  the  long  preceding  time,  you 
will  yield  yourself  to  a  process  for  consolidating 
those  very  habits,  which  will  fix  your  mind  in  a  con- 
firmed antipathy  to  religion.  You  are  intending  to 
enter  at  last  on  consecrated  ground,  and  yet  are  sur- 
rendering yourself  to  a  power,  which  will  hold  you 
back  with  the  grasp  of  a  fiend  when  you  attempt  to 
approach  its  border.  You  presume  ihat  the  latter 
stage  of  your  journey  shall  be  an  ascent  to  heaven, 
and  yet,  in  this  earlier  one,  you  deliberately  choose 
a  track  in  which  you  can  calculate  how  each  down- 
ward step  goes  in  aggravation  of  the  arduousness  of 
that  ascent,  if  you  shall  indeed  ever  attempt  it;  as 
if  a  man  who  had  to  reach  the  summit  of  a  vast 
mountain,  and  might  do  it  on  one  side  by  a  long, 
gradual,  and  comparatively  gentle  declivity,  should 
prefer  essaying  it  on  that  other  side,  where,  descend- 
ing first  to  a  great  depth  to  reach  its  base,  he  must 
then  climb  its  precipices.  Whatever  I  am  now  gain- 
ing, he  might  say  to  himself,  in  the  way  of  pleasant 
indulgence,  in  this  descent,  is  so  much  that  I  shall 
find  to  have  been  gained  against  me  by  the  difficul- 
ty on  yonder  steep. 

It  may  be  easy  for  you  to  have  credit  with  your- 
self in  denying,  in  a  light  inconsiderate  way,  that 
S 


86  THE     IMPORTANCE 

you  are  actually  adopting  a  plan  of  such  monstrous 
absurdity.  You  will  say,  that  you  are  far  from  being 
conscious  of  any  wish  to  aggravate  the  future  diffi- 
culty of  applying  your  mind  in  good  earnest  to  reli- 
gion. But  this  is  an  evasion,  of  the  thoughtlessness 
or  disingenuousness  of  which  you  ought  to  he  more 
tlian  ashamed.  You  are  bound  to  consider,  that  in 
adopting  a  plan,  you  are  accountable  for  every  thing 
which  is  necessarily  involved  in  it.  And  when  your 
plan  is  that  of  spending  an  indefinite  but  large  por- 
tion of  your  life  exempt  from  religion,  you  necessa- 
rily wish  to  have  the  unalloyed  benefit  of  your  priv- 
ilege. (But  what  terms  1  am  using  !)  That  clear 
advantage  you  cannot  have  if  invaded  by  convic- 
tions, if  harrassed  by  conscience,  if  kept  in  awe  of 
the  invisible  Observer,  if  lightened  upon  by  intima- 
tions of  a  judgment  to  come.  You  necessarily  wish 
an  immunity  from  all  this,  in  the  prosecution  of  your 
scheme.  But  therefore,  by  implication,  you  wish 
for  that  which  alone  can  so  exempt  you;  and  that 
is  no  other  than  such  a  hardened  state  of  mind,  such 
an  oblivion  habitually,  and  such  a  power  of  defiance 
occasoinally,  as  will  constitute,  when  fully  confirmed^ 
a  most  fatal  aversion  and  unadaptedness  to  that  trans- 
fer of  your  thoughts  and  affections  to  religion,  on 
which  you  are  presuming  as  the  ultimate  resource. 

And  it  is  probable  that,  if  you  had  self-observa- 
tion enough,  you  might  perceive  this  process  toward 
a  c-onfirmed  state  is  going  on.  Have  you  no  con- 
iciousness  that  the  last  two  or  three  years  of  your 
neglect  of  religion  have  rendered  your  disinclination 


OF    RELIGION. 


87 


to  it  more  positive  ?  May  there  not  be  a  more  sen- 
sible   reaction    against    its    remonstances  ?     If   the 
earlier  feeling  was  that  of  mere  carelessness  about 
the    subject,    has    it  in    no  degree  changed  to    the 
stronger  one  of  aversion  ?     Perhaps  a  serious  book, 
(like  this   of  the  Ris3  and  Progress    of  Religion,) 
which  would  at  a  former  time  have  been  lightly  put 
aside,  as  what  no  way  concerned  you,  would  now  be 
regarded  with  a  pointed  sentiment  of  dislike,  almost 
of  hostility,  as  against  an  ungracious  intruder,  come, 
like  the  ancient  prophet  to   the  impious  king,  "  to 
speak  no  good  of  you,  but  evil."     Perhaps  you  find 
that  you  can  more   promptly  set  aside  any  scruples 
of  conscience   that  rise  to  obstruct  you  in  the  way 
of  your  inclinations.     And  perhaps,  as  a  reward— an 
advantage,  do  you  deem  it  f— of  this  boldness-  yoi| 
are  now   seldomer    incommoded    by  such    scruples. 
So  that,  though   your  feelings  clash  more  unequivo- 
cally with  the  dictates  of  religion  when  it  does  arrest 
your  attention,  you  are  stronger  to  resist,  and  more 
expert  to  elude,  and  suffer  on  the  whole  less  of  the 
trouble  of  its  interference. 

This  is  quite  the  natural  course  ;  but  you  ought 
to  be  aware  of  its  progress.  If  you  absolutely  will 
proceed  on  this  plan,  of  retaining  a  purpose  in  fa- 
vour of  religion,  but  deferring  it  to  some  future 
distant  time,  I  wish  you  would  be  induced  to  keep 
yourself  apprized  of  its  effect  in  you,  by  making  now 
and  then  an  experiment,  in  the  way  of  test,  on  the 
temper  of  your  mind.  Will  you  be  advised  to  take 
occasionally  some  very  serious  and  cogent  book  on 


88 


THE  IMPORTANCE 


the  subject  of  personal  religion,  the  one  just  named, 
or  any  other,  or  some  peculiarly  solemn  part  of  the 
Bible  ;  to  read  it  a  little  while,  and  watch  in  what 
manner  your  inmost  feeling  responds  to  it  f  Do 
this  again  after  an  interval,  and  observe  whether  the 
displacency,  the  repugnance,  of  your  heart,  be  lessj 
— whether  it  be  not  sensibly  more.  In  an  hour 
when  you  are  left  alone,  with  a  perfect  freedom  to 
remain  for  a  while  in  this  retirement,  recollect  the 
duty  of  approaching  your  heavenly  Father,  with 
thanks,  confessions,  and  supplications  :  and  observe 
the  movement  of  your  soul  under  this  thought  in 
this  opportune  hour.  Do  the  same  in  subsequent 
opportunities,  and  see  whether  the  indisposition  be 
not  increased  rather  than  diminished.  And  if  the 
fact  be  so,  what  a  melancholy  phenomenon  ;  a  little, 
dependent  spirit  voluntarily  receding  from  its  benefi- 
cent Creator  ;  directing  its  progress  away  from  the 
eternal  source  of  light,  and  life,  and  joy  ;  and  that 
on  a  vain  presumption  of  being  under  the  comet's 
law  of  returning  at  last  to  the  sun  !  In  a  similar 
manner,  at  successive  intervals,  try  the  effect,  on  the 
temperament  of  your  mind,  of  some  remembered 
example  of  eminent  piety  in  youth,  of  the  recollec- 
tion of  former  youthful  associates  dead,  or  of  the 
solemn  idea  of  your  own  death,  and  your  continual 
approximation  toward  it ;  and  see  whether,  under 
these  applications,  there  will  not  be  betrayed,  in  the 
habit  of  your  feelings,  an  increasing  alienation  from 
religion.  And  yet  you  are  the  person  to  indulge  an 
easy  confidence,  that,  after  you  shall  have  gone  on 


OF   RELIGION. 


c?9 


many  years  thus  confirming  the  estrangement  and 
aversion  from  it,  you  shall  easily  turn  to  it  as  your 
best  friend ! 

Might  it  not  be  well  to  enforce  it  on  yourself  as 
a  rule,  That  this  your  resolution  to  be  religious 
sometime,  shall  be  distinctly  recalled  to  mind  in  each 
successive  instance  of  your  d^ing  what  tends  to  its 
frustration?  3lhen  you  ^"ind  yourself  making  an 
effort  to  banish  the  shad*?  of  pensive  feeling,  or  grave 
reflection,  which  any  circumstance  of  the  time  may 
have  had  power  to  throw  over  you,  say  to  yourself, 
It  is  I,  nevertheless,  that  am  to  be  religious,  and 
therefore  to  cherish  such  thoughts  and  emotions,  in 
a  season  ypt  to  come.  If  you  perceive  yourself 
carefully  avoiding  "  the  house  of  mourning,"  even 
though  it  be  your  friends  that  are  visited  there  with 
sickpess  or  death,  say,  again,  I  am  on©  day,  how- 
ever, to  entertain  and  welcome  that  religion  which 
would  be  there,  at  this  time,  enforced  on  me  with 
such  powerful  admonition.  When  you  are  entering 
a  gay  thoughtless  party,  to  mingle  in  such  a  hilarity 
as  any  visitings  of  religious  reflection  would  quell, 
say  to  yourself,  That  very  thing  which  would  freeze 
this  animation  of  theirs  and  mine,  shall  after  a  while 
be  the  grand  solace  of  my  heart ;  and  this  is  the 
way  I  am  taking  to  prepare  myself  for  its  being  so  ! 
If  you  go  so  far  as  to  endure  voluntarily  and  without 
repugnance,  society  Avhere  serious  subjects  and  pious 
men  are  turned  to  jest,  and  the  most  awful  names 
taken  in  vain,  say,  I  am  training  myself  here,  through 
8* 


90  THE    IMPORTANCE 

familiarity  with  irreligion,  to  give  my  utmost  rever- 
ence and  affection  to  that  of  which  I  am  thus  abet- 
ting the  sctirn  and  profanation.  If  you  are  project- 
ing a  scheme  for  the  occupation  and  satisfaction  of 
a  considerable  portion  of  your  life,  but  cast  upon  a 
principle  and  plan  evidently  unfavourable  to  your 
spiritual  welfare,  reflea,  on  it,  and  say  again,  There 
is  another  scheme  to  be  afterwards  undertaken,  into 
which  I  shall  pass  with  all  the  advantage  of  having 
wholly  excluded  the  care  of  >  from  this  prior  one  : 
when  my  lighter  juvenile  uncoicern  about  religion 
shall  have  settled  into  an  utter  estrangement,  as  a 
part  of  the  habit  confirmed  through  my  long  and 
complete  engrossment  by  a  worldly  project,  then  I 
shall  need  but  one  touch  of  conviction,  Uit  one  re- 
collection of  my  former  vow,  but  one  aci  of  my 
will,  to  throw  my  spirit  free,  and  become  religious 
enough  for  death  and  for  heaven. 

I  repeat  to  you,  that  by  this  course  of  procrasti- 
nation, this  scheme  of  reversionary  piety,  you  are  not 
simply  losing  so  much,  with  regard  to  the  greatest 
affair,  but  are  also  taking  strong  security  against 
yourself  that  you  shall  not  save  the  remainder.  The 
worthless  or  noxious  growth  which  you  suffer  to 
overspread  the  first  large  division  of  your  allotted 
tract  of  time,  is  continually  extending  its  roots  far 
forward,  and  will  scatter  its  seeds  thickly  over  all 
the  space  beyond.  Consider  how  well,  even  at 
your  age,  you  are  informed  of  it  as  a  truth,  that 
whatever  entwines  itself  with  the  youthful  feelings 
maintains  a  strange  tenacity,  and  seems  to  insinuate 


OF    RELIGION.  91 

into  the  vitality  of  the  being.  How  important  to 
watch  lest  what  is  thus  combining  with  its  life,  should 
contain  a  principle  of  moral  death  !  Consider,  that 
in  this  earlier  period  you  are  peculiarly  disposed  to 
entertain  social  partialities,  are  perhaps  giving  your- 
self to  companionship  and  friendships,  or  contracting 
more  intimate  relations,  which  must  have  an  impor- 
tant influence  on  the  growing  formation  of  your 
mind  into  its  decided  character,  and  on  the  con- 
sequent tenor  of  your  life.  New  when  this  social 
attraction  combines  several  parties  destitute  of  reli- 
gion, they  are  in  effect  giving  mutual  pledges  never 
to  be  religious ;  since  they  are  giving  and  receiving 
the  whole  influence  of  their  friendship  to  fix  their 
minds  in  that  state  in  which  they  are  at  present 
pleased  with  one  another ;  that  is  to  say,  in  a  state 
of  aversion  to  religion.  And  supposing  that  each  of 
them  were,  nevertheless,  like  you,  intending  to  be 
religious  sometime,  we  cannot  well  conceive  any 
fairer  occasion  for  the  scoff'of  a  malignant  spirit,  than 
to  see  them  thus  all  in  a  league  to  frustrate  what  each 
of  them  believes  he  intends. 

This  same  intention,  you  have  no  reason  to 
doubt,  has  been  entertained  in  earlier  years,  by  many 
whom  you  now  see  advanced  to  the  middle  or  the 
decline  of  life,  without  having  done  any  thing  toward 
its  accomplishment.  Yet  they  were,  in  their  time, 
as  confident  as  you  are  now.  Should  not  this 
alarm  you  ?  Some  of  them  may  have  yielded  up 
the  design,  not  by  any  express  act  of  renouncement, 
but    insensibly,    in    the  gradual  hardening  of  their 


92  THE    IMPORTAXCE 

consciences,  their  complete  immersion  in  the   world, 
and  assimilation  to  its  spirit ;     with  the  addition,   in 
too  many  cases,  of  the  practice  of  some  more  positive 
kind  of  sin.     Many   of  them,  however,   are   perhaps 
still  retaining  the  purpose,  inert  and  buried  under  an 
accumulation  of  repressive  habits ;  like   a  seed  arti- 
ficially kept  torpid  in  order  that  it  may  be  quickened 
into  germination  at    a    preferable  time.     The    con- 
sciousness that  they  are  mortal,  and  must  be   forced 
at  last  out  of  all  that  now  occupies  and  pleases  them, 
is  soothed  to  repose   in  this  presumption,  that  they 
shall  bring   a  reserved  expedient  into  action,  before 
the  neglect   of  it  be  fatal.     But  answer  honestly,  do 
you  think   it  probable  that  they  will  .^     Do  you  ex- 
pect, if  you  should  live  to  see  them  forward  a  few 
years   further — do  you  expect  to    see  them  withdraw- 
ing their  engrossed  affections,  breaking  asunder  their 
inveterate    habits,  and  doing    a    great  thing    which 
they  have  systematically  and  w^ilfully  prepared  them- 
selves   not  to  do,  that    is,    devoting    themselves    to 
God  and  the  care  of  their  salvation  ?     Perhaps  you 
have  allowed  yourselves  to  imagine  that  you,  after 
having  made   a  considerable  progress  in  years,  shall 
become,  at  every  advance,  proportionally   more  and 
more  sensible  of  the   shortening  of  life,  and  shall 
necessarily  behold  nearer  the  visage  of  death,  pre- 
sented through  a  clearer  medium,  and  with  enlarging 
and  more  defined  features.      How  can  it,  you  may 
have   said,   be   otherwise,    in   the   exercise    of  mere 
common   sense,  than  that  this  approach  toward  the 
end  should  aggravate  upon  me  the  cogency  of  my 


OF    RELIGION.  93 

grand  duty  ?     Do  then  look  again  at  the  multitude 
of  examples  around  you,   and  see   what  avails  them 
this  obvious  arithmetic  of  time.     You   see   persons 
with  whose  names  you  and  your  companions,  with  a 
tacit  pleasure  of  contrast  in  your  favour,  couple  the 
epithet  "  old,"  still  a?  heedlessly  and  confidently  as 
yourselves,   reckoning  on   time  enough  yet,  to  con- 
tinue deferring  the  grand  business  without  peril  of 
its  being  left   undone.     If  their  youthful  "  trust   in 
their  own  heart,"  that   they  would   ultimately  apply 
themselves  to  the  indispensable   business,  fixed  that 
determination  on  about  some   given  point  or  period 
in  their   future  life,  they  can  pass,  or  perhaps  have 
passed  that  period,  with  the  same  facility  of  neglect 
as   any    former   one,    finding    nothing    to   stop  them 
there  with   the  peremptory  exaction  to   perform  their 
vow.     The  lying  spirit  which  had  promised  to  meet 
them   at  the  assigned  spot,  to  conduct  them  thence- 
forward toward   heaven,  appears  not  on  the   ground 
when  they  arive   there,  unless  to  tell  them  that  ano- 
ther stage,  still  further  on,  w^U  be  more  advantage- 
ous for  commencing  the  enterprise.     You  look  at  the 
marks  of  time  on  their  countenances,  recollect  them 
perhaps  as  in  mature  or  middle  age  when  you  were 
in  infancy,  and  wonder  they  can  yield  themselves  to 
such  an  imposition  ;  and  all  this  without  a  single  re- 
flection, that  you  are   putting  yourself  in  the   train  of 
the  same  delusion.     How   can  they  act  so,  you  say, 
when   I  feel   so  certain  of  the  justness  of  my  deter- 
mination  to   act  otherwise,    on   the  strength   of  my 
conviction  of  the  ultimate  necessity  of  religion  ^     Be 


94  THE     IMPORTANCE 

you  assured  there  is  no  more  fatal  betrayer  than  a 
right  and  excellent  principle  adopted,  but  consigned 
to  future  time  and  more  favourable  inclination  for 
being  carried  into  action.  The  consciousness  that 
you  are  certainly  keeping  a  good  resolution,  only 
deferred  to  await  a  "  more  convenient  season," 
will  help  you  to  indulge  a  fallacious  security,  while 
every  season  for  accomplishing  it  is  passing  away. 
Through  one  period  of  your  time  after  another,  it 
will  appear  to  you  infallibly  efficacious  for  the  next ; 
and  no  period  will  come  as  that  from  which  you 
cannot  look  forward  to  still  another.  And  this  your 
purpose,  suspended  as  it  were  in  advance  over  your 
course,  as  a  malign  imitation,  by  infernal  art,  of  the 
star  which  the  sages  followed  to  find  the  Saviour  of 
the  world,  will  probably  lead  you  on,  still  confiding 
that  it  must  stand  arrested  at  the  spot  where  you 
shall  accept  the  grace  of  that  Redeemer,  till  you  are 
drawn  to  a  precipice,  where  your  deluder  will  van- 
ish and  you  will  fall. 

All  the  latter  course  of  this  pleading  has  proceed- 
ed on  the  supposition  that  you  may  have  a  protracted 
life.  It  has  been  an  attempt  to  represent  to  you, 
that  even  if  you  might  be  allowed  to  assume  a  very 
strong  probability,  little  short  of  certainty,  of  reach- 
ing the  full  term  of  human  life — nay,  that  if  you 
were  certain  you  shall,  your  scheme  of  exempting 
its  earlier  portion  from  religion,  on  a  promise  to 
yourself  and  to  God  of  taking  that  for  your  chief 
coi.cern  at  a  more  advanced  stage,  would  still  ^'  ab- 


OF    RELIGION.  95 

surd,  and  wicked,  and  most  dangerous.  But  I  warn 
you  again,  do  not  so  criminally  trifle  with  your  own 
reason  as  to  pretend  on  any  such  calculation,  in  sight 
and  in  contempt  of  the  thousand  instances  of  your 
fellow-mortals  dying  in  youth,  and  in  the  immedi- 
ately following  stage. 

Now,  will  you,  my  young  friend,  lay  such  con- 
siderations to  heart ;  or  will  you  rather  have  it  to 
remember,  perhaps  when  all  to  late,  that  they  were 
pressed  upon  you  in  vain  ? 

This  expostulation,  conceived  as  what  might  have 
been  addressed  to  some  one  of  the  many  young  per- 
sons who  may,  in  various  times  and  places,  have  had 
their  attention  drawn  for  a  moment  to  this  treatise 
of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Religion,  and  averted 
by  the  seriousness  of  its  purport,  has  been  prolonged 
so  exceedingly  far  beyond  our  intention,  and  its 
due  proportion,  that  but  little  space  is  fairly  left  for 
exemplifying,  in  other  forms,  the  trains  of  instructive 
reflection  that  might  take  rise  from  imagining  what 
has  happened  in  connexion  with  the  book.  We 
therefore  leave  it  for  an  exercise  of  the  reader's  own 
thoughts,  if  he  should  deem  there  is  any  profit  in 
such  an  employment  of  them,  to  imagine  in  what 
manner  a  variety  of  individuals,  each  a  specimen 
of  the  character  of  a  class,  may  be  supposed  to 
have  noticed  the  book  at  one  time  or  another ;  what 
feeling  was  excited  at  the  sight,  or  transient  inspec- 
tion, or  perusal  of  it ;  how  they  were  affected  to- 
ward its  subject,  so  inculcated  ;  what  influence,  if 


96  THE    IMPORTAXCE 

any,  it  had  on  their  determinations  ;  and  to  conceive, 
in  each  case  respectively,  what  would  have  been  the 
appropriate  admonitions,  which  it  had  been  well  if 
there  had  been  any  intelligent  and  persuasive  friend 
opportunely  to  offer.  What  such  a  friend  might  per- 
tinently have  said  in  any  of  those  instances,  is  of 
course  the  advice  or  remonstrance  applicable  in  any 
similar  cases,  occurring  now  and  hereafter,  among 
the  incalculably  numerous  persons  whose  attention 
must  be  attracted,  more  or  less,  to  a  work  which  is 
in  still  widening  circulation. 

Foregoing,  then,  the  design  of  specifying  several 
other  discriminated  examples,  we  will  protract  this 
discourse  only  a  little  further,  by  supposing  one  more 
instance;  an  example,  however,  of  a  character  un- 
happily far  too  generally  prevalent  to  be  called  that 
of  a  class.  We  may  describe  the  person  as  a  mere 
man  of  the  world — yet  not  in  the  worst  sense  of 
that  designation  ;  for  we  do  not  suppose  him  an 
abandoned  profligate,  trampling  and  spurning  the 
most  obvious  rules  of  social  morality ;  nor  a  scoffer 
at  religion  ;  nor  a  scorner,  in  a  virulent  spirit,  of 
pious  men  ;  but  devoted  to  this  world,  idolizing  it 
in  his  affections,  exerting  all  his  active  energy  in 
its  pursuits,  surrendering  his  whole  being  to  mingle 
v^ith  its  interests  and  be  conformed  to  its  temper; 
and  therefore  habitually  forgetting  the  other  world, 
and  all  the  grand  economy  of  truths,  overtures, 
means,  preparations,  and  cares  relating  to  it.  He 
might  have  been  in  youth  just  the  same  kind  of  per- 
son  as  the  one  expostulated  with  in  the  preceding 


OF    RELIGION.  97 

pages;  we  are  supposing  him  past  that  age,  and  all 
that  belongs  peculiarly  to  its  character ;  yet  not  ne- 
cessarily as  very  far  advanced  in  life. 

It  cannot  have  failed  to  happen  that  many  such 
persons  have  been  accosted,  as  it  were,  by  the  spirit 
of  our  pious  and  benevolent  Author,  in  the  vehicle 
of  his  book.  If  we  may  conjecture  that  fifty  thou- 
sand copies  have  been  diffused  among  all  orders  of 
society,  and  have  obtained,  through  choice  or  acci- 
dent, with  approbation  or  under  sufferance,  a  posi- 
tion in  almost  so  many  abodes,  our  fancy  has  a 
warrant  to  figure  an  indefinite  variety  of  circum- 
stances, under  which  these  volumes  have  fallen  in 
contact  with  such  men  of  the  world. 

There  may  have  been  the  case  of  such  a  man's 
unwittingly  laying  his  hand  on  the  book,  as  one  of 
a  number  which  had  been  left  him  by  a  religious 
parent,  opening  to  see  what  it  was,  as  not  recogniz_ 
ing  it  by  its  exterior,  and  being  smitten  with  some- 
thing like  an  electric  shock  at  the  sudden  reflection, 
that  for  ten,  or  twenty,  or  thirty  years  since  that 
parent's  death,  he  has  been  no  better  for  this  or  any 
other  religious  book.  Another  such  man,  on  hap- 
pening to  fix  his  eye  on  the  volume,  has  been  struck 
with  the  recollection,  inflicting  perhaps  a  twinge  of 
mental  pain,  that  there  was  a  time,  a  transient  one, 
long  since,  in  his  youth,  when  he  felt  some  convic- 
tions and  emotions  of  a  religious  tendency ;  and 
procured  this  identical  book  in  aid  of  those  salutary 
movements  in  his  mind.  Another  may  have  chanc- 
9 


9S  THE     IMPORTANCE 

ed  to  notice  it  among  books,  which  a  better  care 
than  his  had  provided  for  the  instruction  of  the  young 
people  of  his  own  family;  and  has  perhaps  had  the 
momentary  thought — what,  then,  are  these  young 
men  and  women  to  be  reminded  of  religion,  while  / 
forget  it  ?  Another  may  have  retained  from  early 
instruction,  accompanied  by  example,  a  certain  im- 
pression, resting  on  his  mind  somewhat  like  a  super- 
stition, that  the  Sunday,  ought  to  be  in  some  degree 
unlike  his  other  days,  and  a  small  portion  of  it  given 
to  serious  reading  j  and  in  looking  for  a  book  of 
that  character,  he  may  have  happened  to  take  this, 
and  to  read  enough  of  it  to  cause  him  a  disquieted 
consciousness,  or  a  suspicion  that  his  spirit  and  hab- 
its are  not  quite  in  the  right.  The  case  may  have 
occurred,  that  such  a  man  has  caught  sight  of  this 
book  in  the  recess  of  an  apartment  where  he  and 
others  were  waiting  to  follow  a  dead  person  to  the 
grave  ;  and  that,  under  a  passing  gleam  of  right 
apprehension  and  kind  feeling,  he  internally  said, 
The  Progress  of  Religion — I  hope  it  was  that  road 
that  the  deceased  took  in  his  way  to  the  world  whith- 
er he  is  gone,  for  else  it  were  ill  with  him  now. 

It  may  seem  as  if  these  suppositions  do  not  quite 
agree  with  the  general  description  of  the  character, 
as  altogether  estranged  from  religion.  Such  invol- 
untary and  transitory  excitements  of  a  recognition  of 
that  great  interest,  are  not,  however,  incompatible 
with  a  prevailing  decided  neglect  and  alienation  : 
but,  in  truth,  the  conjectures  may  justly  fall  into  a 
less  charitable  train.     We  suppose  the  case  of  such 


OF     RELIGION  99 

a  man's  observing  that  the  book  had  been  offered  to 
the  attenion  of  the   younger  branches  of  his  family, 
and   admitting   a   slight    reflection    of   self-rebuke. 
But   it  is  not  less  likely  to  have  happened,   that  a 
man  of  this  character,  on  perceiving  such  a  circum- 
stance,  has  signified   displeasure   at   this  expedient 
for   rendering    the   happy   young    creature    prema- 
turely   grave    and    melancholy,     extinguishing,    he 
said,   their   delightful   vivacity,    (which   would  soon 
enough   be  repressed  by  the  cares  and  troubles  of 
life,)  by  unseasonable  apprehensions  about  the  wel- 
fare  of  their   souls.     It  is  no  improbale  case,  that 
the  book  may  have  come  in  the  way  of  such  a  man 
just  about  the   time   when  he  has  seen,  or  perhaps 
experienced   to  his   injury,  an    instance    of  want  of 
principle  in  some  person  making  high  pretensions  to 
religion  ;    and   that   he    said,  with  irritation   and  a 
frown,  I  think  I  may  as  well  let  this  affair  of  religion 
alone,  till  I  see  more  integrity  in  those  who  profess 
to   be   so  deep  in  it.     The  main  matter  of  duty  is? 
to  be   upright  in  our  transactions ;  and,  thank  God, 
I  am  that  without  making  any  canting  pretensions 
to  saintship.     Another  man  of  this  description  may 
have    accidentally   looked    into    the    book  a    little 
while,  and  then  laid  it  aside,  evading  all  personal 
application    with    the    thoughtless  sentiment.    That 
is  all   very   w^ell  for  persons  whose  situation  allows 
them  to  give  themselves  up  to  retirement  and  think- 
ing ;  but   men   like   me   have    far  too   much  to  do 
with  the  practical  business  of  life  to  have  leisure  for 
attending  to  the  subject.     The   book  may  have  ob- 


100  THE    IMPORTANCE 

truded   itself  on   the   notice  of  a   man  deliberating 
whether  to  add  a  new  worldly  undertaking  to  those 
he  was  involved  in  already,  an  undertaking  not  ne- 
cessary, but  calculated  to  make  a  little  more  of  the 
world  his  own.     And  might  it  not  be   supposed  that 
such   a   monitory   intervention   might   contribute  to 
suspend    the  affirmative   decision,   by    force    of   the 
question   whether  this  concern   of  religion,  did   not 
demand  to  take   precedence  of  every  other  new  un- 
dertaking ?     No  ;  the  question  struck  but  feebly  on 
his  mind  ;  the   suggestion  was  easily  cleared  away 
from  interference  with  his  debating  thoughts ;  reli- 
gion could  be   attended   to  at  any  time  indifferently  ; 
whereas  now  or  never  was  the  time   for  the   project 
which   was   warming   his   desires.      The   book  was 
thrown  by,  and  the  subject  vanished. 

It  is  familar  to  observation  that  men  of  the 
world  have  an  arrogant  estimate  of  worldly  wisdom, 
though  the  sphere  of  its  objects  be  so  limited,  and 
the  term  of  its  employment  and  profit  so  short. 
Never  did  the  adepts  in  abstract  philosophy,  or  in 
science,  indulge  a  prouder  conciousness  in  virtue 
of  living  and  reigning  in  the  intellectual  world,  than 
these  men  do  on  the  strength  of  being  shrewd  and 
efficient  in  the  judgment  and  conduct  of  affairs.  Sup- 
pose, then,  one  of  them,  on  returning  from  a  place  of 
resort  and  competition,  where  he  has  excelled  in  the 
discussion  or  transaction  of  some  of  these  affairs,  to 
have  been  led  by  any  chance  to  open  such  a  book, 
and  to  have  glanced  over  a  few  sentences  or  para- 
graphs.    He  probably  did  not  waste   even   his  con- 


OF    RELIGION.  101 

tempt  in  more  than  a  few  brief  expressions  to  this 
effect  : — These  men,  all  for  religion,  talk  of  the  in- 
significance of  what  they  call  earthly  things,  the 
vanity  of  the  world,  the  Christian's  vocation  to  live 
above  it,  the  meanness  of  its  concerns  compared  with 
their  nobler  pursuits ;  and  all  the  while  the}  know 
nothing  about  it.  Too  fantastic  and  feeble  for  the 
vigorous  activities  of  our  department,  let  them  be 
indulged  in  their  notion  that  they  have  vastly  supe- 
rior employments  in  their  own.  It  were  hard  to  deny 
them  the  pleasure  of  declaiming  against  that  which 
they  do  not  understand,  and  in  which  they  would 
make  a  miserable  figure  in  attempting  to  act  a  part. 
Another  man  of  the  worldly  character,  in  a  less  su- 
percilious temper,  may  be  supposed  to  have  looked 
a  little  into  the  book  with  a  feeling  like  this  :  One 
does  wish  one  could  manage  to  have  some  commo- 
dious sort  or  share  of  religion,  that  would  not  cost 
much  trouble,  and  would  put  one  in  safety  as  to 
future  consequences.  But  religion  as  described 
here,  meets  me  as  an  inquisitor  and  a  tyrant.  It 
would  force  a  judicial  investigation  through  my  whole 
soul,  and  that  only  to  expose,  condemn,  and  affright 
me  ;  insists  on  some  strange  revolution  in  my  prin- 
ciples and  feelings  ;  demands  an  unconditional,  un- 
limited submission,  to  a  jurisdiction  which  will  leave 
nothing  within  me,  or  without  me,  at  my  own  free 
disposal;  and,  in  short,  insists  on  setting  the  main 
purposes  of  my  life  in  a  new  direction.  This  is  not 
to  be  endured.  If  I  must  at  last,  for  safety's  sake, 
9* 


102  THE    IMPORTANCE 

submit  on  such  terms,  let  me  enjoy  my  exemption 
as  long  as  I  can  or  dare. 

But  a  man  of  the  world  may  be  a  formalist ;  may 
think  that  no  such  religion  can  ever  be  necessary,  and 
that  he  A«5a  sufficient  one  in  his  regular  performance 
of  an  order  of  mere  external  observances.  Some- 
where, no  doubt,  there  is  a  copy  of  the  book  in 
question  which  such  a  man  has  inspected,  with  eyes 
now  perhaps  closed  for  ever  ;  and  we  can  figure  the 
aspect,  (though  the  pages  do  not  reflect  the  image,) 
of  alternate  disdain  and  indignation  at  what  he  pro- 
nounced to  be  rank  enthusiasm,  with  self-congratu- 
lation on  knowing  a  far  easier  method  of  satisfying 
the  requirements  of  his  Creator. 

We  might  go  on  indefinitely  recounting,  in  pro- 
bable conjecture,  the  modes  in  which  the  worldly 
spirit  has  been  affected  at  coming  in  contact  with  this 
vehicle  of  serious  admonition.  And  what  a  mani- 
festation would  be  given  of  the  nature  of  that  spirit, 
if,  from  unknown  times  and  places,  on  twentieth 
part  would  be  recalled  of  the  instances  in  which  its 
quality  has  been  the  most  remarkably  betrayed  un- 
der such  a  test.  We  will  describe  but  one  example 
more.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  this  production 
of  pious  zeal  has  at  some  time  fallen  in  the  way  of 
a  person  who  had  continued  faithfully  devoted  to  the 
world  quite  to  old  age.  Perhaps  it  met  his  notice 
at  the  time  when  he  was  just  upon  making  the  ut- 
most exertion  of  his  declining  strength,  and  with  an 
eagerness  equal  to  any  passion  of  his  youth,  to  ac- 
complish the  concluding,  the  crowning  part,  of  a  long 


OF    RELIGION.  103 

wrought  project  for  bringing  within  his  grasp  a  ma- 
terial acquisition  of  emolument  or  distinction  ;  in 
other  words,  for  gaining  more  possessions  against  the 
day  of  losing  them,  and  more  decorations  against 
the  day  of  putting  them  off.  And  perhaps  he  did 
not  plainly  say,  Religion,  with  all  that  depends  on  it, 
must  take  its  chance  ;  I  never  yet  have  been  dis- 
posed to  forego  any  thing  for  its  sake,  nor  am  I  now. 
But  we  may  confidently  suppose  him  to  have  said  in 
effect,  I  must  at  all  events  complete  this  affair  in 
hand,  whatever  become  of  any  thing  else.  And 
who  knows  but  he  was  smitten  with  death  before 
either  the  momentous  something  else  obtained  his 
attention,  or  the  project,  for  the  sake  of  which  he 
refused  it,  was  accomplished  ?  Or  we  may  imagine 
the  occurrence  happening  to  a  man  in  a  more  pros- 
trate state  of  feeling,  when  a  long  prosecuted  scheme 
had  failed,  too  late  in  his  life  for  him  to  form  a  new 
one  ;  or  about  the  time  that  increasing  infirmity  had 
constrained  him  to  the  dreaded  task  of  making  his 
will  ;  or  when  he  had  recently  seen  his  most  trusty 
co-operator,  or  his  nearest  relation,  of  his  own  age, 
or  even  the  last  of  his  children,  sink  into  the  grave. 
And  would  it  be  too  hard  upon  human  nature,  or  an 
uncharitable  judgment  of  the  temper  of  a  mind 
grown  old  in  devotedness  to  the  world,  to  suppose 
that,  even  in  circumstances  like  these,  the  man  still 
could  not  resolve  on  so  serious  a  thing  as  attention 
to  religion  ?  No,  we  can  believe  that  he  revolted 
from  the  urgent  enforcement  of  the  subject,  felt  as  if 
any  other  way  of  disposing  of  it  were  preferable  to 


104  THE  IMPORTANCE 

that  of  thinking  of  it,  and  threw  aside  the  book.  He 
had  recourse  to  some  expedients  of  change  and 
amusement,  to  relieve  his  drooping  spirits  and  dark- 
ening days  5  or,  perhaps,  he  made  a  strife  to  force 
his  decaying  powers  to  some  farther  and  superfluous 
exertions  in  the  world's  business.  It  may  even  be 
conceived,  that  the  very  terms  "  Rise  and  Progress." 
suggesting  the  idea  of  long  and  laborious  continu- 
ance, excited  a  gloomy  sense  of  the  want  of  com- 
mensurateness  between  such  a  lengthened  process, 
and  his  now  shortened  life  ;  and  that,  through  a 
lamentable  perversity,  the  sadness  of  this  considera- 
tion, instead  of  alarming  him  to  an  instant  applica- 
tion to  the  grand  concern,  made  him  the  more  recoil 
from  it,  and  but  added  to  the  infatuation  of  his  con- 
suming the  short  remainder  of  his  life,  as  he  had 
consumed  all  before. 

Now,  in  each  of  all  these  instances,  an  intelligent 
christian  friend  might  have  remonstrated  in  terms 
specially  adapted  to  the  individual's  state  of  mind, 
modifying  the  general  argument  for  religion  to  meet 
the  cast  of  irreligious  feeling  in  the  particular  case. 
And  a  discerning  and  skilful  pleader  in  this  good 
cause  may  sometimes  seize  upon  the  peculiar  mode 
of  feeling,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  turn  it  to  account, 
availing  himself  of  it  to  give  his  remonstrance  some- 
thing of  the  point  and  appropriation  of  the  argu- 
mentum  ad  hominem.  But  we  shall  content  ourselves 
with  a  short  address  of  the  nature  of  a  plain  general 
expostulation,  applicable  to  the  general  qualities  of 
the  worldly  character. 


OF     RELIGION.  105 

It  is  true,  that  the  spirit  required  in  any  eftbrt  so 
directed,  is  not  a  little  repressed  by  a  sentiment  par- 
taking of  despondency.  There  is  no  evading  the 
thought,  Why  should  words,  and  arguments,  and 
images  of  unseen  things,  and  adjurations,  be  ex- 
pended on  that  man,  on  those  men  ?  They  will  con- 
tinue the  same.  Why  should  Religion,  like  Cassan- 
dra, waste  her  dictates  and  premonitions  on  a  hope- 
less determination  to  the  wrong  ?  How  can  it  be 
worth  while  to  be  trying,  as  if  it  had  so  much  as 
even  the  uncertainty  of  an  experiment,  how  many 
missiles  will  rebound  from  a  rock,  or  disappear  in  a 
swamp  ;  or  how  many  times  the  taper  may  burn  out 
in  the  vain  attempt  to  kindle  a  fire  in  materials  which 
contain  no  fuel  f 

But  we  would  wish  to  turn  this  very  fact  itself, 
of  the  dispirited  sentiment  which  damps  the  chris- 
tian pleader's  efforts  to  press  religion  on  the  attention 
of  devoted  men  of  the  world,  into  a  topic  of  admo- 
nition to  them.  How  comes  it  to  pass,  we  might 
say  to  them,  that  a  person,  whose  own  mind  is  pos- 
sessed with  the  most  absolute  and  mighty  conviction 
of  the  importance  of  religion,  cannot  help  feehng  it 
nearly  a  forlorn  attempt  to  awaken  any  sense  of  that 
importance  in  you  ?  Has  he  good  cause  for  this 
despondence .?  Is  it  his  experience,  his  just  esti- 
mate, of  the  character  of  your  minds  and  habits, 
that  makes  him  feel  so  ;  and  does  your  self-know- 
ledge tell  you  it  would  be  too  sanguine  for  him  to 
feel  otherwise  ?  Is  it,  then,  a  fact,  that  you  are  hard- 
ened into  a  settled  insensibility  to   the  things  which 


106  THE     IMPORTANCE 

most  vitally  and  profoundly  concern  you  ?  Have 
you  really  a  power,  and  that  power  so  complete  that 
it  is  effectual  almost  without  an  effort,  and  through 
the  inert  force  of  habit,  to  meet  with  indifference  or 
defiance  the  aspects  of  whatever  is  the  most  sub- 
lime, most  amiable,  or  most  tremendous,  in  exist- 
ence ?  When  mercy,  in  a  celestial  form,  approaches 
to  apply  to  your  soul  the  redeeming  principle  with- 
out which  it  will  perish,  can  you  turn  it  away,  coolly 
saying,  Another  time,  perhaps, — or  perhaps  never  f 
And  in  refusing  it  access,  do  you  feel  the  satisfac- 
tion of  a  person  who  has  promptly  and  easily  dis- 
missed an  unreasonable  applicant;  regarding  it  as 
an  arrogant  requirer,  rather  than  as  a  benefactor 
offering  you  inestimable  good  ?  Do  you  feel,  in  thus 
being  out  of  the  power  of  religion,  a  gratifying  sense 
of  immunity  from  one  of  the  evils  which  are  infest- 
ing mankind  ;  that  there  is  one  malady  against  which 
your  mental  constitution  is  fortified,  while  some  of 
your  fellow-mortals,  attacked  by  it,  are  objects  al- 
most of  your  pity  ?  And  do  you  account  this  ex- 
emption, and  carry  it  upon  you  through  the  com- 
merce of  life,  as  a  privilege  of  your  class,  which 
you  as  rightfully  maintain  as  any  other  advantage, 
and  with  which  it  were  little  better  than  impertinence 
for  any  one  to  interfere,  by  representations  in  favour 
of  that  from  which  you  thus  walk  at  liberty  ?  If 
this  be  the  established  condition  of  your  minds,  it  is 
what  ought  to  alarm  you,  like  that  deadly  calm 
which,  in  some  climates,  would  be  an  omen  to  you 
of  the    subterranean    thunder,    and    of  the    ground 


OF  RELIGION.  107 

heaving  and  rending  under  your  feet.  But  at  the 
same  time,  it  is  what  may  well  cause  a  christian 
friend  to  be  despondent  of  the  efficacy  of  expostu- 
lation. 

He  is  so,  because  he  is  aware  that  there  is  nothing 
within  your  minds  adequately,  or  in  any  tolerable  de- 
gree, corresponding  to  the  important  and  solemn 
terms  which  he  must  employ.  He  must  speak  of 
the  soul,  redemption,  faith,  holiness,  conformity  to 
the  divine  image  ;  of  heaven  and  hell,  of  judgment 
and  eternity.  But  these  are  insignificant  sounds, 
unless,  when  pronounced,  they  strike  upon  concep- 
tions already  in  the  mind,  which  answer  to  their  im- 
port, conceptions  which  contain  in  them,  so  to  speak, 
the  ideal  substance  of  what  is  meant  by  these  signs. 
And  he  can  perceive  too  well  that  this  whole  order 
of  ideas  has  but  a  crude,  undefined,  obscure,  and 
feeble  formation  in  your  understanding.  The  most 
solemn  call  of  these  great  words,  is  replied  to  with 
but  a  faint  and  equivocal  recognition  from  within. 
It  is  as  if  the  names  were  called  of  a  company  of 
persons  asleep,  who  answer  without  the  distinctness 
of  consciousness,  and  some  of  them  not  at  all.  Nay, 
might  not  men  of  the  world  be  found  in  such  a  con- 
dition of  the  intellect,  that  these  words,  addressed  to 
raise  the  corresponding  ideas  in  it,  would  be  nearly 
like  calling  aloud,  in  a  field  of  the  dead,  the  names 
which  are  inscribed  on  their  tombs  ^  Change  the 
subject,  and  see  the  difference.  There  are  many 
terms  which  have  their  appropriate  ideas  most  per- 
fectly formed  in  your  understanding  ;  distinct,  palpa- 


108  THE    IMPORTANCE 

ble,  and,  in  full  dimension.     Let  the  denominations 
be  pronounced  of  diverse  kinds  and  values  of  world- 
ly   property,     of  methods   and   rules   of*  transacting 
business,   of  the   different   stations   in  society,  with 
their  respective    relations    and  circumstances,  or    of 
the  materials  and  accommodations  for  gratifying  the 
senses;  let  some  of  these  be   named,  and   instantly 
the    corresponding  ideas  arise  in  the   mind,  substan- 
tial and  distinct ;  so  that  the  utterer  of  the  designa- 
tions knows   he   can  do  with  the  auditor  whatever 
depends  simply   on  his  having  a  right  notion  of  the 
things.     But  when   you    hear   some    of  these    terms 
expressive     of  the    most   important    meanings     that 
could  ever  enter  into  human  intelligence,  how  con- 
fused, uncouth,  and    inane,   how  spiritless  and  pow- 
erless,   are  the  forms    of  thought  which  glimmer  on 
your  apprehension  !     It  is   as  if  words  pronounced 
to  evoke  mighty   spirits,  were  answered  only  by  the 
coming  of  the  owls,  bats,  and  insects,  of  the  twilight. 
The     religious  monitor    is    tempted  to     despond, 
again,   because    he  sees   that  your  devotion   to    the 
world  is  established   into  system,  almost  into  mecha- 
nism.   A  very   young  person  may  be   frivolous  and 
thoughtless  to  the  last  degree ;  but  he  is  variable ; 
his  present  impressions  may  quickly  give  place  to  new 
ones;  he  may  abandon  one  fine  favourite  pursuit  for 
a  different  one  ;  and  should  religion  attempt  to  seize 
him  at  an   interval  of  these  versatile   movements,  it 
will  indeed  have  to  contend  with  his  levity,  and  the 
radical  aversion  in  his  nature  to  sacred  subjects,  but 
not  with  a  set  of  habits  grown  to  a  firm  consistence, 


OF     RELIGION.  109 

in  a  shape,  we  might  say  an  organization,  adapted  ta 
keep  his  whole  soul  in  one  steady  mode  of  adhesion 
to  the  world.      This  latter    is  a  description  of  the 
condition  of  many  of  you,    its  devotess.      There   is 
no  longer  any  question  whether,  or  in  what  way,  you 
shall    be    wholly   surrendered    to    it.     The    habitual 
fact  has  taken  the   matter  out  of  the  province  of  vo- 
lition.     That   you    faithfully   adhere,     in    spirit    to 
the  world,  that  you  live  for  it,  to-day,  and  to-morrow, 
and   each  ensuing  day,  and  wherever  you  may  be, 
seems  as  much  of  course  as    that  bodily  you  walk 
on  its   surface.     And   not  only  are   you  under  this 
principle  of  determination  to  it  as  your  general  ob- 
ject,  but  you  have   a  settled  adjustment  of  feeling 
and    estimate    to    its   diversities   respectively.      You 
have  your  maxims,  associations,    and  affections,    in 
an  orderly  state  to  meet  and  coalesce  with  them  all 
and   each.      And   your   general   worldly   spirit  pre- 
serves a  consistency   of  its  special  action  throughout 
all   the  detail  of  its  objects  ;  the   manner  in   which 
the  predominant  law  operates  with   respect  to  each, 
agreeing  with   its  mood  of  operation  in  all  the  oth- 
ers.    Thus,  you  are  men   of  the  world  not  only  by 
one  general  sentiment  of  devotedness  to  it,  but  in  a 
systematic  appropriation   of  that  sentiment  to  various 
and    numberless   particulars.     While  you  cleave  to 
the  world  generally,  we  maybe  allowed  the  figure 
of  saying,  that  each  fibre,  each  nerve,  of  your  mo- 
ral nature,  has  its  own  particular  point  of  application 
to  this  your  sovereign  good  ;  and  all  pervaded  and 
10 


110  THE    IMPORTANCE 

kept  in  uniformity  of  action  by  the  ascendant  prin- 
ciple ;  that  principle  by  which  you  "  serve  the  crea- 
ture more  than  the  Creator." 

While   you   are   beheld  in   this   firm  conjunction 
with   the  world,  by  a  general  attachment,  and  by  a 
distributive   application  of  that  attachment,   like  the 
Indian  fig-tree    connecting  itself  vitally,  at    a  hun- 
dred spots,  with,  the  soil  over  which  it  spreads,  it  is 
no  wonder  that  a  person    desirous  of  warning    you 
not  to  make  light  of  infinitely  higher  interests,  should 
attempt  it  with  very  faint  hope,  or  be  discouraged 
from  making  the  attempt  at  all.     That  which  he  has 
to  present  to  you  will  be    repelled  by  a   principle 
which  acts  in  a  combination  of  resisting  impulses, 
working    with    uniformity  and    constancy  ;  some  of 
them    proceeding,    perhaps,    from    the    temper    of 
mind    acquired    in    commercial    pursuits ;  some    of 
them  from  the  habits  of  feeling  which  have  grown 
from  *'  friendship  with    the  world,"   from  contented 
and  preferred  association   with   men  devoid   of  reli- 
gion ;  some  of  them  from  the  disposition  produced 
by  the  study  and  strife  to  make  your  way  upward  in 
society  ;  some  of  them  from  the   practice   of  reliev- 
ing  the  cares  of  business  only  by  the  indulgences  of 
pleasure  ;  and  some  of  them,  perhaps,   from  a  taste 
for  appearing  as  men  of  fashion.     All   this  is  a  sys- 
tematic fortification  against  the  access  of  religion,  to 
instruct,    persuade,  or    remonstrate.     And    the  fatal 
completion   of  the  evil  may  be,  that  you  are  insensi- 
ble of  any  great  evil  or  danger  in  all  this.     For  you 
have   fully  adopted  the  world's   standard  of  charac- 


OF  RELIGION.  ill 

ter,  according  to  which  you  may  be,  all  this  while, 
what  are  called  honourable  men.  You  may  even 
come  to  take  credit  for  considerable  liberality  of 
opinion  in  allowing,  that  it  is  right  enough  there 
should  be  in  the  world  a  class  of  earnest  devoted 
religionists,  as  well  as  other  varieties  of  character  ; 
that  they  do  very  right  to  follow  up  their  own  con- 
victions ;  their  only  offence  being  the  fanaticism  of 
insisting,  that  all  ought  to  be  such — that  you  ought 
to  be  such  ;  whereas  yours,  you  say,  is  a  character 
much  better  adapted  to  the  world  we  are  to  live  in 
than  theirs. 

So  you  are,    on  the  whole,    in    high  favour  with 
yourselves.     You  may  not,    indeed,  be    entirely  se- 
cure against  occaisional  disturbances    to  your  self- 
satisfaction  ;  there  may  be  moments  when  a  suspi- 
cion arises  from  the  dark  depth   within  that  all  is  not 
right  ;  when  conscience,  generally  still,  gives  some 
intimations,  like  the  sighs  of  a  person  beginning  to 
recover  from    a    suspended  animation  ;  when    some 
glimpses  of  a  greater  economy  are  admitted  through 
narrow  rents  and  openings  in  the  little  system  within 
which  you  are  immured.     But  you  suffer  no  habitual 
annoyance  of  an  impression  that  you  must  alter  your 
plan.     This  your  general  satisfaction  with  the  part 
you  are  acting,   depresses  the   spirit   of  the  pleader 
tor  religion.     He  wants  to  persuade  you  to  reflect  ; 
but  how   and  when  can  he  bring   an   adequate  force 
of  such  persuasion  to  act  on  such    a    state   of  the 
mind  ^     You    are  so    possessd,    he    says,  with  your 
own  good   opinion,    that   any  serious   examination. 


112  THE     IMPORTANCE 

whether  it  be  not  a  delusive  one,  will  appear  to  you 
a  superfluous  trouble,  and  the  exhortation  to  it,  offi- 
cious and  impertinent. 

But  will  you  absolutely  refuse  such  an  exercise  of 
your  reason  ?  How  can  you  have  lived  so  long 
without  feeling  that  so  much,  at  least,  is  what  a  ra- 
tional, accountable  being  ought  to  do?  Do  it  now  ! 
What  should  prevent  you  f  You  have  in  that  spirit 
the  power  to  think  at  this  very  time.  Yon  can  fix 
it  intently  on  the  subject  that  you  shall  choose. 
Now  is  an  interval  which  can  be  exempted  from  the 
indispensable  demands  of  business,  and,  if  you  will 
it  so,  from  the  allurements  to  dissipation.  You 
may,  you  can,  this  hour,  recollect  whether  there  be 
a  subject  of  transcendent  importance,  which  you 
have  never  duly  considered  yet  ;  and  you  may  choose 
it,  instead  of  ajiother  subject,  for  present  considera- 
tion. You  cannot  help  seeing  what  that  subject  is. 
It  is  Religion  that  stands  before  you,  with  oracles, 
lights,  and  an  exhibition  of  the  most  grand  and  aw- 
ful images.  It  is  that  which  represents  to  you,  the 
real  truth  of  the  state  of  your  soul  toward  God,  the 
concern  of  your  eternal  interests,  the  relation  you 
stand  in  to  another  world,  the  peremptory  require- 
ment of  what  you  must  do  to  be  saved.  What  can 
ever,  through  endless  duration,  be  worth  your  con- 
sidering, if  this  be  not.^  You  know  that  religion, 
unless  it  be  a  fable,  has  all  this  importance,  that  it 
has  this  importance  to  you,  and  that  it  has  it  to  you 
now,  while  this  day,  this  hour,  is  passing.  In  a  mat- 
ter of  incomparably  less  magnitude,  (say  it  were  a 


OF    RELIGION.  113 

most  critical  hazard,  threatening  you  at  the  point 
where  your  temporal  prosperity  mainly  depended, 
and  might  he  ruined  for  life,)  you  would  feel  that 
the  concern  pressed  importunately  and  justly  on  the 
thoughts  and  cares  of  the  present  instant.  If  any 
one  advised  you  to  take  no  trouble  of  vigilance  or 
exertion  about  it,  to  occupy  yourself  entirly  with 
other  matters,  and  indifferently  await  the  event,  you 
would  spurn  the  suggestion  as  equally  unfeeling  and 
absurd.  What !  you  would  say,  when  the  whole 
question  of  safety  or  utter  ruin  may  be  depending 
on  the  judgment  and  activity  which  I  may  exercise 
this  day.'^  But  here  is  the  supreme  interest  of  your 
existence.  It  cannot  be  safe,  you  will  confess  it 
cannot,  if  you  will  give  it  no  serious  attention.  But 
then  you  are  confessing  that  you  have  left  it  till  now 
in  peril,  and  that  it  is  so  at  this  very  hour — nay,  in 
greater  peril  than  ever  before,  as  aggravated  by  the 
guilt  of  such  wilful  neglect,  and  by  the  diminution 
of  the  term  allotted  for  the  attainment  of  a  happy 
security.  And  can  you  repel  from  you,  can  you 
resolutely  set  yourself  to  force  off,  its  urgent  appli- 
cation for  your  immediate  attention  ?  Look  at  the 
action  of  your  mind.  Is  it  really,  even  now,  in  the 
very  effort  of  an  impulse  to  drive  this  subject  away, 
and  are  you  giving  your  whole  will  to  make  this  im- 
pulse successful  ?  And  do  you  feel  that  you  are 
prevailing  ^  And  is  it  impossible  for  you  to  reflect, 
at  this  moment,  what  it  is  that  you  are  successfully 
doing.?  Cannot  you  perceive,  have  you  no  suspi- 
10* 


114  THE  IMPORTANCE 

cion,  what  dreadful  principle  it  is  that  is  giving  you 
this  power  and  this  success  ?  Can  you  let  it  per- 
form such  a  work,  and  not  resolve  to  inspect  its  na- 
ture ?  Look  at  it,  observe  its  fatal  operation  just 
wow  going  on  ;  and  then  say,  honestly,  whether  any 
thing  can  be  of  a  quality  more  execrable  ?  Do  not 
say  this  is  extravagant  language ;  do  not  stay  to 
mind  the  language  at  all  ;  but  fix  your  attention  on 
the  thing  itself.  Words  are  wind  ;  but  there  is  a 
reality  there  in  operation  at  this  moment  in  your 
mind.  It  is  actually  there — the  fearful  principle, 
which  is  actuating  your  feelings  and  your  will  to 
force  away  from  your  spirit  the  thoughts,  and  all  the 
benefit  of  thinking,  of  your  highest  duty  and  interest, 
of  your  eternal  salvation.  If  it  could  be  suddenly 
revealed  to  you  in  full  light,  what  an  operation  this 
is  which  you  are  even  now  suffering  there  in  your 
heart,  no  awful  catastrophe  in  nature,  no  tempest  nor 
shock  of  an  earthquake,  would  affright  you  so  much. 
After  an  interval,  we  would  ask  you.  And  is  it  now 
done  ?  Has  the  repelling  principle,  after  so  many 
former  successes,  prevailed  once  now ;  so  that  the 
great  subject  which  approached  you,  appealed  to 
you,  solicited  you,  displayed  smiles  of  divine  benig- 
nity, alternating  with  just  menaces  and  frowns  on 
your  obstinacy,  has  been  driven  off,  and  is  vanishing 
like  the  images  of  a  disturbing  dream  when  one 
awakes  !  Are  you  now  quite  at  your  ease  again,  to 
go  free  into  your  business,  conviviality,  or  amuse- 
ments ?  Then,  what  have  you  accomplished, — but 
to  send   an  angel  of  mercy   away,  and  to  vanqui&ih 


OF    RELlGlOPf.  115 

any  last  power  that  remained  in  an  almost  expiring 
conscience  ?  What  have  you  gained,  but  to  have 
your  soul  still  more  securely  grasped  by  that  which 
withholds  it  from  God,  and  a  confirmed  power  and  fa- 
cility of  rejecting  that  which  speaks  in  his  name, 
if  it  should  obtrude  on  you  again  ?  In  what  new 
principle  do  you  walk  forth,  but  that  of  having  less 
remaining  time,  and  augmented  disinclination,  for 
that  one  thing  of  which  the  failure  is  perdition  ? 

Such  a  view  of  the  disposition  of  your  minds,  and 
of  the  manner  in  which  you  submit  and  betray  them 
to  be  acted  upon,  chills  the  animation  of  a  person 
who  would  plead  with  you  to  apply  them  to  religion. 
But  still  we  would  hope  better  things,  and  that  it 
may  yet  not  be  in  vain  to  conjure  you  to  reflect  on 
this  great  subject  as  involving  your  welfare.  Tell 
us  whether  it  be  utterly  an  idle  hope,  which  a  more 
perfect  knowledge  of  you  would  show  it  foolish  to 
entertain,  that  you  may  be  induced  to  employ,  in  the 
exercise  of  such  reflection,  this  day  and  hour  to 
better  purpose  than  any  former  one  of  your  life. 
Why  should  not  this  be  the  day  for  a  determined 
seriousness  of  thought  ?  Think  enough,  at  least,  to 
give  a  reason  why  it  should  not ;  and  think  whether 
it  would  not  be  worse  than  a  shame  to  refuse  such 
an  employment  without  a  reason.  And  if  the  only 
reason  be,  that  you  are  reluctant,  consider  whether 
that  reason,  that  reluctance,  will  ever  spontaneously 
cease.  But  consider,  too,  whether  that  reluctance, 
be  not  itself,  in  truth,  a  mighty  reason  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  as  implying,  in  the  conscious  discordancy 


116  THE    IMPORTANCE 

between  your  spirit  and  the  subject,  a  disorder  so 
formidable,  that  madness  alone  would  be  content  to 
leave  it  unexamined  and  unreformed.  Would  that 
a  super-human  power  might  stand  in  your  way  jiist 
here,  stop  you  at  this  point  in  your  course,  and  con- 
strain you  to  reflect  now !  The  hours,  the  day, 
which  you  are  just  now  entering  on,  are  as  yet  va- 
cant, but  will  soon  be  filled,  and  gone.  They  are 
coming  as  a  space  of  time  which  might  be,  may  be, 
filled  with  a  mental  exercise  of  immense  value.  Here 
is  a  subject  claiming  to  occupy  them  as  they  come 
on.  If  admitted  to  do  so,  it  will  indeed  inflict  re- 
morse for  your  having  sent  away  into  tlie  past,  a 
long  succession  of  the  portions  of  your  time  charged 
with  no  such  precious  contents;  thus  avenging  itself 
on  you  for  your  prolonged  rejection.  But  will  that 
be  an  indication  that  you  would  have  done  well  to 
reject  it  still,  and  excite  your  grief  that  it  has  for 
once  eflfectually  arrested  you  f  Would  you,  under 
this  arrest,  struggle  as  to  escape  from  an  enemy ; 
when  the  subject  will  bring  with  it  the  evidence  and 
the  conviction  that,  though  with  an  austere  and  ac- 
cusatory aspect,  it  is  certainly  come  as  a  friend  ? 
Admit  it  into  your  mind  and  time  this  once,  with  all 
its  solemnities,  and  even  its  reproaches.  And  if,  as 
a  condition  of  doing  so,  you  will  insist  on  retaining 
some  precautionary  resource  against  being  absolute- 
ly and  irrecoverably  surrendered  to  it,  you  may  be 
assured,  (if  you  can  accept  so  melacholy  a  fact  for 
consolation,)  that  in  the  strength  of  your  corrupt 
nature  you  will  not  easily  lose  all  power  of  re-action 


OF    RELIGION.  117 

for  debarring  its  entrance,  when,   at  another  time,  it 
shall  present  itself  to  you  again. 

There  possibly  are  special  circumstances  of  the 
present  time  of  a  nature  to  enforce  this  exhortation. 
It  may  be,  that  one  of  you,  worshippers  of  the  world, 
has  just  experienced  an  ill  reward  of  his  faithful 
devotion.  Some  grievous  dissapointment,  perhaps, 
some  failure  of  a  project,  some  fall  of  your  fortunes, 
some  blast  on  your  hopes,  has  reduced  you  to  a 
temporary  disgust  with  what  you  have  so  unreserv- 
edly loved.  Just  now  the  world  stands  before  you 
with  faded  attractions,  and  you  feel  as  if  you  could 
forswear  your  dedication  and  attachment  to  it. 
Now,  though  this  be  a  turn  of  feeling  not  the  purest 
in  principle,  it  might  be  made  beneficial  in  effect. 
Instead  of  allowing  your  spirit  to  remain  stagnant 
in  a  sullen  and  resentful  mortification,  waiting  till  the 
world,  which,  however  cruelly  it  may  sport  with  its 
votaries,  (ioes  not  easily  let  any  of  them  go,  shall 
again  assume  an  aspect  of  blandishment,  and  renew 
its  promises,  how  wise  would  it  be  to  take  advantage 
of  this  reflux  of  your  affections  to  turn  your  thoughts 
toward  religion,  and  see,  and  try,  whether  there  may 
not  be  something  better  for  you  there.  It  would  be 
a  worthy  revenge  on  a  world  that  has  disappointed, 
cheated,  and  wronged  you,  to  avail  yourself  of  the 
recoil  of  your  heart  from  it,  in  reinforcement  of  the 
conviction  that  it  is  time  to  "seek  a  better  country;" 
thus  turning  it  into  an  impulse  to  a  new  formed  aim 
at  "  the  prize  of  the  high-calling."  But  at  any  rate, 
and  at  the  least,  do  not  let  this  disturbance  of  your 


1 1 S  THE     IMPORTANCE 

friendship  with  the  world  be  lost,  as  a  circumstance 
to  coincide  with  the  remonstrance  which  would 
awaken  you  to  serious  reflection.  Do  not,  at  once, 
fall  out  with  the  world,  and  disregard  or  resent  that 
which  would  tell  you  how  just  is  your  quarrel,  how 
long  since  it  ought  to  have  taken  place,  and  how  in- 
comf  arably  better  you  may  do  than  make  up  the 
breach. 

Perhaps  some  of  you  have  just  witnessed,  with 
indignant  vexation,  one  of  the  iniquitous  partialities 
of  fortune,  as  you  call  it.  A  man  whom  you  know 
to  be  of  worthless  or  detestable  character,  has  ob- 
tained, through  apparent  casualty,  or  by  means  of 
craft  or  corrupt  interest,  or  even  by  the  most  undis- 
guised violation  of  right,  some  remarkable  advan- 
tage of  enrichment  or  precedence  ;  such  a  thing  as 
you  ^had  coveted  but  not  presumed  to  hope  for;  or, 
poss.bly,  as  you  had  hoped  and  indefatigably  labour- 
ed for,  many  years,  b;U  never  could  grasp  the  prize. 
And  in  the  pride  of  this  acquisition  he  insulted  the 
more  deserving  men,  at  the  cost  of  whose  disap- 
pointment and  injury  he  had  made  it.  You  exclaim- 
ed. What  a  world  this  is,  where  the  good  things  go 
to  the  worst  men  ;  and  merit  may  pine  and  die  ! 
But  is  this  the  identical  world  to  which  you,  never- 
theless, are  so  infatuated  that  you  will  not  so  much 
as  think  of  another.^  What,  are  you  resolved  that 
a  glaring  manifestation  to  you  of  the  quality  of  the 
object  you  have  idolized,  shall  rather  serve  to  any 
effect,  even  that  of  corroding  your  heart  to  no  avail, 
than  to   that  of  lending  force  to   the  persuasions  o 


OF   RELIGION.  119 

religion;  of  religion,  which  has  uniformly  testified 
to  you  that  your  object  is — what  you  are  now  prac- 
tically finding  it  ?  Would  you  rather  be  retained, 
resentful  but  still  servile,  for  this  tyrant  to  exhibit  you 
in  scorn  as  a  slave,  fretting  indeed,  but  impotent,  even 
in  will,  to  revolt,  than  adopt  the  hero's  language, 
exalted  into  a  christian  sense  and  spirit,  "  Then, 
thus  I  turn  my  back  ;  there  is  a  world  elsewhere  ?" 

It  may  be,  again,  that  one  of  you  has  lately  seen 
a  rival  and  coeval  worshipper  of  the  world  leave  it. 
Perhaps  the  manner  of  his  departing  answered  to 
the  description,  "  driven  away."  You  observed  the 
long,  lingering  look  cast  after  all  that  was  receding, 
and  the  fearful  glance  toward  what  was  approaching. 
You  saw  what  was  the  result  of  that  choice  which 
had  been  made  by  you  both,  and  to  which  he  had 
remained  constant  nearly  to  the  moment  when  an 
irresistible  power  interposed  to  rend  him  off.  You 
have  the  images  of  this  sad  spectacle  fresh  now  in 
your  mind ;  and  those  images — are  they  atheists 
there  ? 

Or  you  may  have  beheld  a  less  tragical  exempli- 
fication of  what  the  world  will  do  for  its  friends,  in 
the  case  of  one  whom  you  had  long  known  as  a  be- 
liever in  its  promises,  a  zealot  to  its  principles,  and 
a  staunch  pursuer  of  its  objects ;  but  who,  in  the 
closing  scene,  relented  into  shame  and  penitential 
sorrow,  faintly  mingled  with  hope  in  the  divine 
mercy  which  he  emplored.  He  declared  to  you  his 
overwhelming  conviction  of  the  folly  of  his  course, 
and  yours  ;  and  entreated  you  no   longer   to  leave 


120  THE    IMPORTANCE 

your  whole  soul  immersed  in  that  which  must,  in 
such  an  hour,  break  away  from  around  you,  and 
abandon  you  to  a  desolation  like  his.  Now  recol- 
lect ;  at  the  time  of  receiving  such  an  admonition, 
did  you  really  think  there  was  nothing  rational  in 
it  ?  While,  for  decorum's  sake  at  least,  you  put  on 
a  grave  and  assenting  manner,  did  you,  neverthe- 
less, coolly  say  within  yourself,  or  was  there  a  con- 
sciousness equivalent  to  saying,  I  need  not  take  any 
further  thought  of  this  f  I  do  not  wonder  that  this 
person,  in  such  circumstances,  should  talk  so  ;  but 
what  he  says  or  feels  has  no  appropriateness  in 
its  application  to  me.  I  must  not  let  any  such 
gloomy  ideas  take  possession  of  my  mind  ;  no,  not 
even  though  it  be  possible  enough,  I  may  ultimately 
come  into  a  situation  in  which  [  shall  think  and  feel 
in  the  same  manner. 

We  may  confidently  assume,  that  you  did  not,  on 
the  spot,  maintain  such  composure,  and  pledge 
yourself  to  these  conclusions.  A  certain  indistinct 
dismay,  at  the  least,  invaded  you,  to  the  effect  of 
subduing  you,  with  some  general  kind  of  conviction 
to  the  formation  of  some  general  kind  of  purpose. 
Or  possibly  the  impression  was  exceedingly  power- 
ful, the  conviction  a  distinct  act  of  judgment,  and 
the  resolution  very  determinate.  And  what  then  t 
Have  you  since  deliberately  judged  all  this  to  have 
been  a  vain  agitation  of  your  spirit,  a  brief  delirium, 
occasioned  by  a  sympathetic  infection  from  the  sight 
of  sickness,  distress,  and  death  ^  If  not,  have  the 
intervention  of  a  certain  number  of  hours  and  days 


OF    RELIGION.  12 1 

a  short  succession  of  risings  and  settings  of  the  sun, 
and  the  return  of  the  accustomed  thoughts  and  em- 
ployments, essentially  altered  the  merits  of  the  case  ? 
Have  these  caused  what  ivas  truth,  and  obligation, 
and  danger,  to  be  such  no  longer?  Has  the  mere 
passing  of  time  reduced  importance  to  inanity?  Or 
has  it  detached  from  you,  and  brought  to  appear  as  no 
longer  your  own,  that  grand  interest  which  can  have 
no  reality  but  as  a  personal  one,  but  as  your  own  ? — 
just  as  if  you  were  to  consider  the  things  affecting 
your  natural  life  (for  instance,  your  state  of  health 
or  disease,  your  exposure  to  a  peril  or  security 
against  it,)  as  something  existing  in  the  abstract ;  a 
reality  indeed,  but  something  quiet  separable  from 
yourself.  The  circumstance,  too,  that  by  the  pass- 
ing of  the  intervening  time,  you  are  carried  a  little 
nearer  to  the  final  result  of  your  plan  of  life,- — has 
this  actually  lessened  the  importance  which  you  saw 
in  such  magnitude  by  that  solemn  light,  which  flash- 
ed upon  you  in  the  gloomy  chamber  where  a  rival 
lover  of  the  world  was  penitentially  preparing  to 
leave  it  ?  Think  of  a  rational  being  so  easily  pass- 
ing free  from  the  hold  of  the  strongest  forms  of  ad- 
monition ;  and  spending  his  time  to  the  very  pur- 
pose, in  effect,  of  reducing  his  apprehension  of  the 
awful  magnificence  of  eternity,  progressively  to  a 
more  and  more  diminutive  impression  against  the 
moment  when  he  is  to  plunge  into  it ! 

Should  no   circumstances  nearly  resembling   these 
have    occurred    within  your    recent   experience,    it 
11 


122  THE    IMPORTANCE 

would  be   a  rather  unusual  lot  if  you  have  not  met 
with  some  incident,  some  turn  of  events,  some  aspect 
of  life  or  death,  adapted  to  enforce  serious  reflection. 
Look  a   little  way   back  in  memory,   and   see  if  no 
image  will  arise  to  remind  you  that  then,    and  there, 
by  such  an  event,  such  a  spectacle,  such  a  voice,  you 
were  specially   admonished  to  consider  your  course. 
And  answer  it  to  jourself  what  effect   that  appeal  to 
your  conscience   ought  to   have  had.     But   do  not 
narrowly  limit  such  a  review,   as  if  afraid  to  retun  to 
those  spots  in  past  time,  where  the  hand  of  a  dreaded 
power  touched  you  as  you  passed,  where  truth  spoke 
to  you  in  severe  accents,  or  a  more  gentle,    pursua- 
sive  voice  entreated  *^you  not  to  go  thoughtlessly  on. 
If  you   he  afraid   to  go  back  thither,  what  is  it   that 
this  apprehension  tells  you  ?     Do  not  limit  the  retro- 
spect as  if  you  had   no  concern   with  the  occasions 
and  causes   that  once,   long  since,  challenged  your 
consideration  to    the    most   important  subject.     Do 
not  yield  to  the  deluded  feeling,  that  all  those,  being 
gone  so  far  away,  have    perished  from  all  connexion 
with  you ;  like    the   portion  of  air  which   you  then 
breathed,  or  the  grass  or  flowers  on  which  you  hap- 
pened  to   tread.     For  be   assured  they   inseparably 
belong  to  your  present  and   ultimate  responsibility. 
They  are  all  coming  after  you,  however  silently  and 
unthought-of,  and   will  be  with  you  in  the  great  ac- 
count.    And  if  you  could  be   induced  to  make  an 
effort,  in  any  thoughtful  hour,  to  imagine  with  what 
a  vividness  of  recognition,  and  intensity  of  reproacii, 
the   monitory  occurrences  of  your  past   life    will  at 


OF    RELIGION.  l2o 


last  present  themselves  to  strike  upon  your  con- 
science, if  they  shall  have  been  disregarded  in  their 
time,  and  suffered  to  go  useless  into  oblivion  as  you 
have  proceeded  on,  it  might  have  the  effect  of  re- 
calling them  now,  to  combine  in  operation  with  all 
the  other  things  which  summon  you  to  reflection. 

When  a  religious  observer  sometimes  has  his 
thoughts  directed  upon  you,  he  is  struck  with  the 
idea,  what  a  mighty  assemblage  of  considerations, 
that  should  irresistibly  compel  you  to  thoughtfulness, 
you  are  insensible  of.  As,  when  we  extend  our 
contemplations  conjecturally  into  the  economy  of 
existence  which  surrounds  us,  it  is  suggested  to 
thought  what  unembodied  intelligences,  what  com- 
munications, what  agencies,  what  elements  perhaps, 
what  processes,  there  are  on  all  sides,  and  many  of 
them  relating  to  us,  but  of  which  the  senses  admit 
no  perception ;  so  in  the  spiritual  economy,  that  is, 
the  system  of  relations  in  which  the  immortal  mind 
stands  involved,  there  are  realities,  there  are  truths, 
of  highest  import,  there  are  arguments,  warning  cir- 
cumstances, alternatives  of  good  and  evil,  most  vi- 
tally relating  to  your  welfare,  but  non-existent  to 
your  apprehension.  The  very  emanations  of  heav- 
en, radiating  downward  to  where  you  dwell,  are  in- 
tercepted, and  do  not  touch  you.  It  is  the  frequent 
reflection  of  a  thoughtful  mind,  in  observing  you — 
what  ideas,  what  truths,  what  mighty  appeals,  belong 
to  the  condition  of  this  one  man  ;  and  of  that,  de- 
voted and  enslaved  to  the  world — O,  why  is  it  im- 
possible   to    bring  them   into    application  !     A    few 


124  THE    IMPORTANCE 

words  are  sufficient  to  express  such  things,  as.  if 
they  were  to  fall  with  their  proper  weight,  and  no 
more,  on  their  spirits,  enclosed,  as  it  were,  in  the 
consolidated  habits  of  the  world,  mixed  and  harden- 
ed in  its  clay,  would  excite  a  commotion  through 
their  whole  insensate  being,  and  alarm  them  to  a 
sense  of  a  new  world  of  thoughts  and  interests.  A 
few  minutes  of  time  would  b(^  enough  for  the  enun- 
ciation of  what,  if  it  could  be  received  by  them  in 
its  simple,  unexaggerated  importance,  would  stop 
that  one  man's  gay  career,  as  if  a  great  serpent  had 
raised  its  head  in  his  path  ;  would  confound  that 
other's  calculation  for  emolument ;  would  bring  a 
sudden  dark  eclipse  on  that  third  man's  visions  of 
fame  ;  would  tear  them  all  from  their  inveterate  and 
almost  desperate  combination  with  what  is  to  perish, 
and,  amidst  their  surprise  and  terror,  w^ould  excite 
an  emotion  of  joy  that  they  had  been  dissevered, 
before  it  was  too  late,  from  an  object  that  was  car- 
rying them  down  a  rapid  declination  towards  destruc- 
tion.— And  the  chief  of  these  things,  so  potent  if 
applied,  are  not  withheld  as  if  secreted  and  silent  in 
some  dark  cloud,  from  which  we  had  to  invoke  them 
to  break  forth  in  lightning ;  they  are  actually  exhi- 
bited in  the  divine  revelation. 

This  so  strange  a  condition, — that  there  are  migh- 
ty truths,  requisitions,  overtures,  promises,  portents, 
and  menaces,  as  it  were  close  to  you,  suspended 
just  over  you,  of  a  nature  to  demolish  the  present 
state  of  your  mind  if  brought  in  contact  with  it, 
and  that,  nevertheless,    it  remains  undisturbed, — is 


OF     RELIGION.  125 

sometimes   a   matter   of  gloomy,  indigant,    and    al- 
most misanthropic    speculation.     But  in   the  season 
of  better   feeling,   the   religious  beholder  is  excited 
to   a   benevolent   impatience,   a   restless   wish    that 
things  so  near  and  important  to  you  should  take  hold 
upon  you.     Why  cannot,  he  says,  that  which  comes 
between    and   renders    those    things,   intrinsically  of 
such  awful  force,   actually  powerless,   be  destroyed 
or  removed  ?     If  there  be   a  principle   of  repulsion, 
if  there  be  a  veil,  if  there  be  a  shield  invisibly  held 
by  a  demon's  hand,  let  it  be   annihilated,  that  the 
appropriate    truth    may  rush   in  with  all   its   power. 
Let  the   thought  of  the  Almighty  fulminate   on  the 
mind  of  that  mortal   who  is  living  "  without  God   in 
the   world."      Let   the    idea   of  eternity  overwhelm 
that  spirit,  whose    whole   scheme   of  existence  em- 
braces but  a   diminutive    portion   of  time.     Let  the 
worth   and  danger  of  the  soul  be  instantly  revealed 
to  that  person,  whose  chief  cares  are  engrossed  with 
the    accommodation    or    adornment    of   the    bodj. 
Let   the    value   of    treasures   in   another    world   be 
brought   into  sudden   contrast  with  earthly  wealth, 
in   the   view  of  that  worshipper  of  Mammon.     Let 
the  scene  of  the   last  judgment  present  itself,  in  a 
glare,  to  him  whose  conscience  is  in   repose  on  the 
delusive  principles  of  the   world's  morality  and  reli- 
gion.    Let  an  austere  apparition,  as  from  the  dead, 
accost  him  who  is  living  as  if  life  were  never  to  have 
an  end.     To  him  who  is   indifferent  to   the  whole 
concern  of  salvation,  let  there  be  an  affecting  display 
11* 


126  THE    IMPORTANCE 

of  what  an  extraordinary  appointment,  of  mingled 
justice  and  mercy,  was  required  to  render  it  possi- 
ble, and  of  what  it  cost  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 
Let  these  things  strike  into  the  souls  of  men  of  the 
world,  and  they  would  awake  in  amazement  at  their 
previous  condition,  and  continue  long  in  sorrow  for 
its  criminality  and  absurdity.  And  are  these  still  to 
be  exactly  the  things  for  which  they  have  no  sensi- 
bility or  perception  ?  And  is  it  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  these  objects,  constantly  pressing  for 
their  attention,  but  unacknowledged  and  unseen,  that 
they  are  to  occupy  themselves  with  every  business, 
or  entertain  every  trifle  and  vanity,  satisfied  that 
nothing  is  greatly  wrong,  assured  that  all  is  safe,  or 
not  even  caring  so  much  as  to  think  whether  they  be 
safe  or  not  ? 

But,  men  of  the  world,  it  is  possible  you  may  be 
provoked  to  assume  the  defensive,  and  deny  the  jus- 
tice of  so  strong  a  charge  of  irrationality  and  guilt 
as  we  make,  in  applying  to  you  this  denomination 
with  these  comments.  But  it  is  not  safe  for  you  to 
do  this  with  a  thoughtless  confidence,  without  an 
exercise  of  reflection  to  ascertain  the  real  state  of 
your  mind  and  character.  Be  persuaded  to  make 
an  effort  to  take  a  true  account  of  that  state,  as  a 
simple  matter  of  fact.  Of  what,  in  all  the  world, 
should  you  be  concerned  to  know  the  truth,  if  not 
of  that  internal  condition  which  is  forming  your  des- 
tiny for  hereafter  ? 

Now,  then,  is  it  not  true,  is  it  not  a  fact,  that 
almost  the  whole  system  of  the  feelings  and  activity 


OF     RELIGION.  127 

of  your  mind  is  limited  exclusively  to  this  world,  so 
as  to  be  practically  much  the  same  as  if  you  were 
unaware  that  your  being  has  an  ampler  sphere  of  in- 
terests ?  Observe  what  is  the  extent  of  the  range 
which  your  spirit  takes.  Question  it  how  far  it 
goes  forth,  habitually,  or  at  any  time.  See,  and 
acknowledge  to  yourself,  what  it  is  that  is  in  sole 
possession  of  you,  as  if  you  were  made  for  noth- 
ing more. 

Take  a  view  of  your  thoughts.  They  are  in 
number  incalculable,  and  they  can  go  in  all  direc- 
tions, to  a  boundless  extent;  they  might  "wander 
through  eternity."  Whither  do  they  go,  the  count- 
less thousands  of  them,  and  on  what  do  they  fix  ? 
You  may  perceive  that  nearly  all  of  them  stop  within 
the  circle  of  this  world's  concerns.  They  start,  and 
move,  and  traverse,  incessantly,  but  still  within  this 
contracted  scope  ;  seeming  to  know  of  nothing  that 
is  revealed,  or  important,  or  possible  to  you  beyond 
it.  How  many  of  them  ever  go,  in  the  impulse  of 
faith,  into  the  spiritual  region,  or  bring  you  intima- 
tions of  having  seen  into  a  superior  world?  But 
there  is  no  need  of  thus  adding  question  to  ques- 
tion; you  plainly  know,  that  the  continual  activity  of 
your  thoughts  is  centred  upon  an  order  of  temporal 
interests  ;  that  there,  and  there  almost  exclusively, 
they  are  busy  and  never  tired,  morning  and  evening, 
and  throughout  all  your  times  and  seasons. 

Observe,  also,  your  affections  and  passions,  those 
"feelings  of  the  heart  which  often  accompany  the  acts 
of  thought.     See    what   it    is    that    most  certainly 


12S  THE     IMPORTANCE 

awakes  them  at  the  slightest  call ;  that  attracts,  at- 
taches, and  absorbs  them.  Suppose  that,  at  very 
many  times,  fallen  upon  indifferently  and  without 
any  selection  of  occasions,  the  question  were  to  be 
suddenly  put,  and  ingenuously  answered  from  con- 
sciousness at  the  instant,  What  is,  just  now,  the 
most  an  object  of  complacency,  desire,  or  solicituder 
how  often  do  you  think  it  would  happen,  in  a  thou- 
sand repetitions  of  the  question,  that  the  answer 
would  name  any  object  of  higher  order  than  this 
world's  affairs  ?  Would  it  be  twenty  times  ;  w^ould 
it  be  ten  ? 

And  your  schemes  of  active  pursuit, — what  is  that 
which  would  be  their  success  ^  Is  there  one  of  them, 
or  any  part  of  one  of  them,  of  which  no  possible 
turn  of  worldly  events  would  be  the  disappointment? 
Would  any  thing,  that  should  be  the  most  disastrous 
to  your  spiritual  welfare,  be  a  frustration  of  any  one 
of  those  schemes  ? 

We  say,  is  it  not  true,  that  this  is  your  state  of 
mind?  But,  then,  reflect,  that  you  practically  dis- 
own the  grand  relations  of  your  nature.  You  en- 
deavour not  to  belong,  if  we  may  express  it  so,  to  a 
spiritual  world,  but  to  the  merely  material  and  ani- 
mal order  of  existence.  In  plainer  terms,  you  ac- 
knowledge no  good  in  being  spirits,  but  to  serve  the 
earthly  purposes  of  this  short  life.  You  do  what 
you  can  to  withdraw,  by  a  resolute  subsidence  and 
degradation,  from  that  economy  which  holds  the 
spirit's  sojourning  on  earth  connected  with  every 
thing  higher  in   existence.     From  the  system   con- 


OF    RELIGION.  129 

stituted,  (as  a  part  of  that  economy,)  for  renovating, 
trainins:,  and  finally  exalting  them,  you  practically 
make  yourselves  aliens  and  outcasts,  rejecting  its 
benefits,  and  wishing  you  could  be  forgotten  in  its 
jurrisdiction.  You  are  content  that  any  other  fallen 
beings,  rather  than  you,  should  be  included  in  the 
dispensation  of  mercy,  through  a  Mediator.  And, 
to  complete  this  abdication  of  your  most  solemn  re- 
lations, you  assume  to  be  only  in  some  very  relaxed 
and  undefined  manner  subjects  of  responsibility  and 
retribution.  All  this,  in  effect,  you  are  doing,  in 
devoting  yourselves,  with  soul  and  life,  exclusively 
to  the  interests  of  this  world.  For  what  less  can 
you  be  doing,  while  you  refuse  all  practical  acknow- 
ledgment of  these  grand  relations,  maintain  a  state 
of  mind  unconformed  to  them,  employ  no  cares  or 
affections  upon  them,  and  will  not  allow  even  your 
thoughts  to  be  directed  to  them  ?  But  is  it  not  an 
enormous  and  fearful  absurdity,  that  while  thus  you 
are  actually  involved  in  relations  which  no  power 
but  that  which  could  annihilate  your  being  can  dis- 
solve, with  a  grand  system,  comprehending  whatever 
belongs  to  the  existence  and  interests  of  spirits,  com- 
prehending a  method  of  redemption  through  a  Me- 
diator, an  invisible  state,  heaven,  hell,  and  eternity, 
you  should  form  your  life  on  a  plan,  as  if  this  relative 
condition  of  your  spirit  were  abolished,  or  were  noth- 
ing but  a  fantastic  theory,  and  contract  all  the  inter- 
ests of  your  spiritual  and  immortal  being  to  a  span 
of  time  and  earth  ?  Think  what  the  predicament 
will  be,  when  these  disowned  but  indissoluble  rela- 


130  THE  IMPORTANCE 

tions  shall  vindictively  verify  their  reality  and  autho- 
rity, and  wrest  you  away  from  that  object  to  which 
you  have  reduced  and  confined  yourself,  so  as  to  be 
almost  growing  into  one  substance  with  it. 

Again,  is  it  not  true,  that,  in  this  devotedness  to 
the  world  you  are  living  estranged  from  God? 
Though  this  was  implied  in  the  preceding  represen- 
tation, you  would  do  well  to  make  it  a  distinct  matter 
to  be  brought  to  the  proof.  Try  it  by  any  mode  of 
questioning  that  would  the  most  prominently  expose 
the  truth.  For  example  :  suppose  that  such  a  thing 
were  at  any  time  to  take  place,  as  that  you  should 
feel  a  mighty  impression  of  the  divine  presence,  a 
consciousness  of  being  pervaded,  in  your  every  fac- 
ulty, quality,  and  thought,  by  the  sunbeams,  as  it 
were,  of  his  irresistible  intelligence,  an  affecting 
sense  of  your  entire  dependence,  a  horror  for  having 
sinned  against  him,  an  ardent  aspiration  to  enjoy  his 
eternal  favour,  and  a  determination,  with  the  utmost 
impulse  of  your  affections  and  will,  to  serve  him 
thenceforward, — say  whether  this  would  not  be  the 
most  amazing  phenomenon  that  had  ever  happened 
to  you.  Would  you  not  wonder,  beyond  all  power 
of  expression,  what  new  moral  element  could  have 
been  shed  around  you,  for  your  spirit  to  see  and 
breathe  in  ?  But  then  the  fact  must  be,  that  the 
present  state  of  your  mind  is  the  reverse  of  all  this ; 
that  the  Almighty  God,  your  creator,  preserver,  and 
governor,  the  supreme  benefactor,  and  the  sole  pos- 
sible giver  of  ultimate  felicity,  has  hitherto  been  in 
your   regard    a   comparatively   insignificant    object. 


OF   RELIGION.  131 

The  universe  of  his  works,  the  revelations  of  his 
word,  the  directing  interference  of  his  dominion,  the 
wonders  and  mysteries  involved  within  your  own  ex- 
istence, have  but  feebly  and  seldom  brought  the  ap- 
prehension of  him  to  your  minds.  The  good  which 
you  have  enjoyed,  and  which  could  not  have  come 
to  you  but  through  an  inconceivably  multifarious 
agency  of  an  intelligent  Power,  you  have  received 
as  if  resulting  from  some  mechanism  of  nature,  or 
imparted  by  the  pagan  unthinking  soul  of  the  world  ; 
but  indeed,  without  reflecting  on  it  so  much  as  to 
acknowledge  even  that  for  its  source.  The  schemes, 
which  have  been  the  chief  business  and  interest  of 
your  life,  were  formed  with  no  express  consideration 
whether  God  would  approve  them,  and  prosecuted 
in  utter  forgetfulness  of  dependence  on  him  for  aid 
and  success.  If  the  thought  had  spontaneously 
arisen,  What  is  God  to  me,  in  sensible  importance  ? 
the  reply  might  have  been,  Nothing ;  or  less,  at 
most,  than  that  person,  ni}  friend,  or  that  other,  my 
foe  ;  than  that  ability  of  my  coadjutors,  that  appli- 
cation of  art,  that  machinery,  that  sum  of  emolu- 
ment. As  to  piety,  aspiring  so  high  as  the  experi- 
ence of  communion  with  God,  and  the  influential 
operation  of  his  Spirit,  if  such  ideas,  conveyed  in 
such  terms,  incidentally  met  your  notice,  they  ap- 
peared either  unintelligible  or  fanatical.  Recollect 
and  question  the  habitual  temper  of  your  mind, 
whether  it  has  not  been  an  unwelcome  thing  to  be 
reminded  of  God  at  all.  If  it  might  have  been  con- 
ceded   to   vou  that  you  should  obtain  what  would 


132  THE     IMPORTANCE 

please  you  most,  with  respect  to  a  lasting  condition 
of  your  existence,  would  not  the  wish  have  been 
something  like  this  :  that  God,  contenting  himself 
with  carrying  on  the  general  system  of  the  world, 
only  rendered  a  little  more  commodious,  would  allow 
you  to  live  in  it  indefinitely  onward — and  let  you 
alone  ^ 

Now,  if  there  should  be  an  interval  when  you  are 
inclined,  (for  some  of  you  profess  to  be  capable  of 
abstracted  mental  employments,)  to  indulge  your 
imagination  in  contemplating  awful  and  portentous 
spectacles,  in  ideal  or  actual  existence,  you  need  not 
range  in  quest  of  such  into  the  visionary  world.  Nor 
need  you  go  to  far-oft^  tracts  of  the  creation,  seeking 
what  mighty  forms  of  evil  may  there  have  their 
abode.  The  guardians  of  the  fearful  secrets  of  any 
dark  coast  might  justly  remand  you  back,  to  behold 
here,  in  your  own  place,  a  visitation  of  the  most 
direful  prodigy  which  can  have  blasted  any  region 
with  its  presence.  For  here,  in  the  condition  of 
your  spirits,  the  sovereign  and  most  sacred  principle 
of  order  in  the  creation  is  abjured  and  exterminat- 
ed. To  be  most  intimately  in  the  presence,  to  be 
surrounded  continually  by  the  glory,  of  a  Being  om- 
nipotent and  infinitely  intelligent,  existent  from  eter- 
nity to  eternity,  the  originator,  supporter,  and  dis- 
poser of  all  other  existence ;  and  to  feel  no  power- 
ful impression  on  your  mind,  no  reverential  fear,  no 
frequent  intimations  even  of  the  very  fact, — is  not 
this  an  astonishing  violation  of  all  rectitude,  a  most 
melancholy  dereliction   of  all   reason?     This   is  to 


OF    RELIGION.  133 

have  your  best  faculties  shrunk  and  stupified  to  a 
strange  conformity  with  brutal  nature,  without  its  in- 
nocence and  impunity.  This  is  in  effect  to  tell  that 
Being,  that  his  infinite  supremacy  is  a  vain  circum- 
stance in  this  province  of  his  dominion ;  that  his  is  an 
unnecessary  and  undesirable  presence,  tolerable  only 
while  leaving  you  unreminded  of  it,  or  consenting  to 
be  regarded  with  indifference.  It  is  as  if,  with  an 
inversion  of  piety,  you  would  thank  him  only  for 
being  invisible  and  silent,  and  pray  only  that  he 
would  be  more  entirely  and  be  always  so.  You  tell 
him  that  the  most  inconsiderable  of  the  things  he 
has  made,  or  even  the  things  which  men  have  made, 
are  of  more  importance  in  your  view  than  all  the 
magnificence  of  his  glory.  Under  the  heaven  and 
efiulgence  of  that  glory,  you  deliberately  involve 
your  spirits,  as  it  w^ere,  within  little  opaque  spheres 
of  matter,  pleased  to  be  secluded  from  the  light  of 
the  universe. 

How  can  we  help  it,  if  you  will  regard  this  as  a 
mere  rhetorical  and  perhaps  pompous  display  of  an 
evil  really  of  no  formidable  magnitude,  and  cooly 
pass  it  by  with  the  remark,  that  we  might  as  well 
employ  sober  language  ?  We  will  only  say,  beware 
that,  in  calling  for  sober  language,  you  do  not  mean, 
a  language  conveying  a  faint  and  unawakening  ex- 
pression of  the  truth.  Bew^are,  also,  that  you  do 
not,  on  such  a  subject,  mistake  for  soberness,  any 
thing  less  than  deep  and  most  serious  thought.  And 
if  you  will  but  have  the  conscience  to  exercise  such 
12 


134  THE    IMPORTANCE 

thought,  it  may  be  left  to  your  own  judgment  to  es- 
timate the  evil  involved  in  the  undenied  fact,  that, 
being  continually  and  inevitably  in  the  presence  and 
power  of  the  Almighty,  you  yet  are  careless  of  this 
infinitely  the  most  important  circumstance  of  your 
situation.  The  character  of  that  fact  would  be  ex- 
posed to  you  in  alarming  manifestation,  if  your  re- 
flection should  cast  a  faithful  light  upon  it  in  the  in- 
i^stances  in  which  you  may  have  the  evidence  that  it 
is  a  fact.  Fix  your  attention  on  some  of  those  cir- 
cumstances which  will  prove  to  you  that  you  are 
"without  God  in  the  world,"  and  honestly  endea- 
vour to  see,  in  those  exemplifications,  whether  it  be 
possible  to  overrate  the  irrationality,  the  guilt,  and 
the  danger.  Thus,  for  instance,  when  you  feel  your- 
self vigilantly,  and  even  intensely  solicitous  about 
your  reputation  among  your  fellow  mortals,  as  if  the 
essence  of  your  happmess  depended  on  their  opin- 
ion of  you,  and  are  gratified  or  wounded  as  that 
opinion  honours  or  depreciates  you,  reflect,  that  you 
feel  no  such  concern,  and  perhaps  never  have  felt  a 
thousandth  part  of  the  measure  of  concern,  how  you 
stand  in  the  account  of  the  Governor  and  Judge  of 
the  world  ;  and  then,  dwell  on  this  fact  with  judicial 
consideration,  and  answer  to  yourself  whether  there 
be  not  a  profound  depravity  in  such  a  state  of  mind. 
When  you  have  been  spending  many  hours  in  soci- 
ety, with  a  lively  interchange  of  sentiments,  with 
your  attention  directed  to  various  persons,  and  with 
a  variously  modified  interest  in  being-  in  their  com- 
pany, reflect,  (for  may  not  this  be  often  the  truth  ?) 


OF  RELIGION. 


135 


thai  you  hardly  once,  all  the  while,  recollected  the 
presence  of  the  greatest  Being  in  the  universe  ;  and 
then  soberly  consider  what    a  grossness  of  spirit  is 
proved  by  such  an  oblivion.     A  show  of  human  coun 
tenances   and  figures,  a  circulation  of  ordinary  con- 
verse, with  some  intermingling  excitement  of  vanity 
and   competition,  were  enough  to   preclude,  during 
the  race  of  so  many  thousands  of  your  moments,  all 
recognition  of  Him,  who  was   then  preserving  your 
life,  inspecting  your  heart,  witnessing  your  proced- 
ure ;  and  who  was  adored  by  whatever  nobler  spirits 
might  have  their  offices  to  perform  in  this  part  of  the 
terrestrial   scene.      Think  of  this,  and  confess   that 
such  a  complete  and  prolonged  absence  of  the  recol- 
lection betrays  a  condition  of  mind  most  refractory 
to  the  training  for  that  other  society,  where  his  pres- 
ence is  continually  felt  as  the  one  most  impressive 
fact,  and  most  animating  cause  of  delight. 

It  may  be  allowed  to  descend  to  still  more  special 
illustrations.  We  may  suppose  one  of  you  to  di- 
rect his  look,  or  his  walk  over  a  piece  of  ground,  in 
which  he  has  the  rights  of  a  proprietor — till  his  suc- 
cessor shall  take  them.  He  might  reflect,  that  this 
space  of  earth  has  more  occupied  his  thoughts  and 
affections,  has  been  beyond  comparison  a  more  in- 
teresting reality  to  him,  than  the  author  and  sustain 
or  of  the  whole  creation.  Then  let  him  look  again 
on  the  soil,  exert  one  solemn  act  of  thought  toward 
him  by  whom,  and  in  whom,  all  things  exist,  and 
judge  whether  this  be  not  a  horrid  impiety.  Anoth- 
er of  you  has  gazed  upon,  and  leaned  over,  the  ma- 


136  THE     IMPORTANCE 

terial  which  represents  wealth,  and  confers  the  power 
of  it;  he  has  stood  by  his  god,  delighted  and  ab- 
sorbed, without  thought  or  care  respecting  any  other, 
in  earth  or  heaven.  It  should  be  possible,  when  he 
shall  find  himself  in  this  situation  again,  to  constrain 
himself  to  one  effort  of  serious  reflection  ;  and  when 
he  has  done  so,  let  him  tell  whether  he  did  not  seem 
to  hear  a  voice  say,  "  Thy  money  perish  with  thee." 
Some  of  you  may  be  men  of  a  more  refined  taste, 
and  may  have  drawn  into  your  possession  a  rich  col- 
lection of  the  works  of  genius,  in  literature  and  art. 
Let  them  confess  to  themselves  whether  they  have 
not  contemplated  the  splendid  and  growing  accumu- 
lation with  a  delight,  a  care,  and  a  pride,  of  incom- 
parably stronger  prevalence  in  the  mind,  than  any 
sentiment  regarding  the  Divinity.  To  be  thus  en- 
vironed with  the  productions,  (even  though  they  little. 
in  truth,  consulted  them,)  of  the  most  vigorous  and 
cultivated  minds  of  many  regions  and  ages,  consti- 
tuted, perhaps,  a  kind  of  heathen  elysium,  in  which 
they  were  insensible  of  any  necessity  of  converse 
■with  the'  perfect  Intelligence,  the  Source  of  all  men- 
tal light,  of  all  beauty  and  grandeur.  But,  shall 
their  dwelling  amidst  the  collected  results  of  think- 
ing, be  itself  a  cause  to  disable  them  for  reflection  ? 
If  not,  let  them  consider  what  is  the  true  quality  of 
that  passion  by  which  they  are  rendering  this  abode 
the  scene  of  a  voluntary  exile  from  "  the  Father  of 
lights,"  raising  as  it  were  a  wall,  constructed  of  the 
works  and  monuments  of  human  intellect,  to  shut 
themselves  up  from  his  communications.      And  let 


OF    RELIGION.  137 

them  reflect  how  melancholy  it  must  be,  to  go  away 
from  amidst  the  pomp  of  literary  treasures,  poor, 
( and  the  more  so  for  the  very  passion  for  possessing 
them,  and  the  idolatry  of  them  as  possessed,)  in 
all  the  attainmets  and  dispositions  preparatory  to 
an  entrance  on  that  scene  where  no  truth,  no  intel- 
lectual glory,  no  ideas  or  realities  of  sublimity  or 
beauty,  can  be  apprehended  separately  from  their 
Divine  Original.  Let  the  gratified  possessor  look 
again  at  the  imposing  array  of  the  vehicles  of  all  that 
has  been  the  most  powerful,  admirable,  and  enchant- 
ing in  human  thought  and  fancy,  but  with  a  reflec- 
tion with  which  he  may  never  before  have  surveyed 
the  spectacle.  Here  is  the  intellectual  world  con- 
centrated, as  it  were,  and  embodied  before  me.  It 
is  but  a  small  portion  of  it  which  the  brevity  of  life, 
with  its  many  employments  and  grievances,  will  per- 
mit to  be  of  any  avail  to  me  for  a  valuable  use ;  but 
1  find  there  is  a  principle  operating,  which  can  turn 
the  whole  collectively  to  a  pernicious  efl^ect.  For, 
the  more  I  delight  myself  in  being  surrounded  with 
this  affluence  of  the  productions  of  mind,  the  less 
am  I  disposed  to  communication  with  Him  whose 
living  influences  on  my  spirit  can  alone  make  me  wise 
and  happy.  But  can  1  be  content  to  think  that  I 
shall,  after  a  little  while,  retire  from  this  proud  temple 
to  the  honour  of  human  intellect,  actually  doomed  to 
take  with  me  an  unfitness  acquired  in  it  for  the  life 
of  intelligence  and  felicity  in  the  immediate  presence 
of  God .? 
12* 


13S  THE  IMPORTANCE 

Again,  some  of  you  might  be  addressed  as  per- 
sons raised  high  above  the  level  of  the  community, 
in  wealth,  rank,  or  power,  or  all  these  together. 
You,  of  this  order,  sometimes  look  down  to  see  how 
far  the  multitude  are  below.  And  proud  indeed 
would  your  position  be,  if,  in  looking  down  from 
your  eminence,  you  did  not  descry  certain  things 
which,  if  we  may  express  it  so,  dare  to  look  up,  and 
dare,  though  the  multitude  do  not,  to  ascend. 
Against  such  things  as  vexation,  pain,  sickness,  old 
age,  and  death,  your  lofty  station  is  not  embattled; 
and  their  commission  to  ravage  the  plain  below,  con- 
tains no  restriction  that  they  respect  your  elevated 
ground.  Still,  notwithstanding  you  are  highly  pleas- 
ed with  the  situation  which  exhibits  you  in  such 
splendour,  affords  such  variety  of  gratifications,  and 
gives  so  commanding  an  ascendency  over  inferior 
mankind.  You  indulge  sometimes  in  the  luxury  of 
verifying  to  yourselves,  by  an  act  of  reflection,  what 
a  fortunate  lot  it  is  that  you  possess ;  and  the  images 
you  raise  to  augment  this  luxury,  by  contrast  with 
what  you  can  the  most  forcibly  represent  to  your- 
selves as  infelicity,  are  those  of  a  condition  in  life 
insignificant,  obscure,  and  indigent.  This  proud 
complacency  would  perhaps  be  heightened,  if  you 
could  have  a  disclosure  fully  made  to  you  of  the 
mortification  and  envy  felt,  by  many  tens  of  thou- 
sands, in  comparing  their  situation  with  yours.  In- 
deed you  sometimes  do,  some  of  you,  gratify  your- 
selves by  imagining  this.  But,  amidst  all  the  satis- 
faction or  exultation,  have  you  no  perception  of  a 


OF    RELIGION.  139 

shade  stealing  over  the  tract  of  brightness  where  you 
are   walking   in   pride ;  an  ominous  gloom,  charged 
with  deep  meaning,  "  instinct  itself  with  spirit,"  and 
giving  intimation  of  a  Being  who  knows  no  envy  or 
admiration,  and  is  "  no  respecter  of  persons  ?"     True, 
there   is  very  much  in  your  situation  to  prevent  all 
such  perceptions.     It   is  striking   to  consider,  what 
resources  it  affords  for  escaping  or  expelling  the  in- 
vasion of  all  serious   thought  that  should  make  any 
reference    to  heaven.     The   means   you  possess  for 
change  of  place,  and  every  other  stimulant  variety  ; 
the    pomp    and    show    of  life ;  the    routine    of  cere- 
mony ;  the  amusements  offering  in  rapid  and  endless 
succession ;    the    epicurean    gratifications  ;    and,    in 
the  case   of  some  of  you,  the  extensive   concerns  of 
business   and  enterprize,   or  the  management  of  im- 
portant public  affairs  ; — all  these  are   of  mighty  effi- 
cacy,  as   long   as   you   enjoy   tolerable    health,    for 
averting  the  admonitions  of  a  more   solemn  interest. 
On  every  side   to  which  you  turn,  the  "  god  of  this 
world"   has   disposed    his    enchantments,    that    you 
should  not  see  the  objects  which  are  making  signs 
to  you   by  authority  of  heaven,  nor  hear  their  call. 
And  you  are  pleased  to  have  it  so ;  as  the  people  of 
former  ages,  when  that  spectacle  of  rare  appearance 
in   their  hemisphere,   which   they  denominated     the 
blazing  star,  was  regarded  as  of  direful  presage,  were 
glad   that  an  unbroken   array  of  clouds  should  veil 
the  sky,  to  yield  them  a  temporary  but  thoughtless 
alleviation  of  their  alarm,  by  concealing  the  dreaded 
phenomenon.     If  you  could  resolve  on  an  exercise 


140  THE    IMPORTANCE 

of  reflection,  to  ascertain  the  causes  of  the  gratifica- 
tion you  feel  in  these  pomps,  diversities,  luxuries, 
and  occupations,  you  would  find  a  very  material  one 
to  be,  that  they  save  you  from  any  serious  and  pro- 
longed recognition  of  the  Almighty,  and  of  those 
great  subjects  inseparable  from  the  idea  of  him.  Yoi\ 
would  instantly  be  sensible  that  you  are  so  estranged 
from  him;  and  would  discover  that  you  have  been 
thanking  these  beguilers  lor  assisting  you  to  be  so. 

But  is  not  this  a  most  perverted  and  perilous  con- 
dition ^  With  the  full  consent  of  your  will,  you 
suffer  this  worldly  grandeur,  this  prosperity,  these 
quickly  successive  and  variegated  gratifications,  to 
have  the  effect,  that  whatever  is  to  be  dreaded  from 
the  justice  and  disapprobation  of  a  God  neglected 
and  despised,  approaches  still  more  and  more  near, 
and  hovers  imminently  over  you,  without  being  seen 
or  apprehended  ;  as  the  monarch  of  Babylon's 
sumptuous  revelry  was  the  very  cause  that  the  de- 
stroyer of  all  that  triumph  could  come  so  close  with- 
out being  perceived.  Think  also  of  the  circum- 
stance that,  while  you  are  placed,  by  the  possession 
of  the  high  advantages  (that  is,  what  may  and  ought 
to  be  advantages)  of  your  situation,  under  a  most  co- 
gent responsibility  to  God  for  their  use,  you  sufier 
this  very  possession  to  render  you  thoughtless  of  this 
responsibility.  What  will  prove  to  be  the  guilt  and 
the  consequence  of  such  conduct  towards  him  ^  To 
complete  the  estimate  of  such  a  condition,  consider 
how  certainly  all  this  pageant  of  your  pride,  pomp, 
and  luxury,  will  break  up,  and  be   gone,  when  the 


OF     RELIGION.  141 

angel  of  death  alights  by  you,  to  send  your  spirits, 
divested,  disenchanted,  but  unprepared,  to  their 
great  account.  A  funeral  parade  over  your  dust  will 
seem  as  if  expressly  designed  in  mockery  of  your 
past  grandeur,  by  celebrating  your  ejection  from  it ; 
and  will  serve  your  equally  thoughvtless  successors  for 
a  variety  in  the  exhibition  of  their  pride  and  state. 

In  all  the  ranks  of  society,  (below  the  highest,) 
thnre  are  very  many  actuated  by  a  restless  ambition 
to  obtain  the  notice  and  conceded  ticijuainiarice  ot 
those  above  them.  In  turning  our  observations,  for 
a  moment,  to  persons  of  this  description,  we  might 
appeal  to  their  own  consciousness  of  what  it  is  that 
they  allow  to  take  precedence  of  all  thoughts  and 
solicitudes  relating  to  God.  There  is  sometimes 
stealing  upon  you  a  sentiment  of  mortification  that 
your  lot  had  not  been  cast  in  a  higher  rank,  and  that 
it  is  in  vain  to  think  of  attaining  the  envied  station. 
Fortunately  for  your  self-complacency,  you  can  turn 
this  chagrin  into  an  active  spirit  for  gaining  the  next 
best  object  in  your  esteem,  that  is,  to  be  on  such 
terms  with  those  above  you  as  shall  gratify  both  your 
pride  and  your  vanity.  You  aspire  eagerly  to  be 
acknowledged  by  them,  and  to  be  seen  to  be  acknow- 
ledged, as  persons  of  some  account  in  their  estima- 
tion. You  work  assiduously,  by  manners  expressive 
of  deference,  by  adulation,  when  you  can  venture 
to  offer  it,  by  officious  and  voluntary  services,  and 
some  of  you  by  gross  servility,  to  purchase  their 
favourable  attention.  And  when  a  degree  of  it  is 
conferred  on  you,  in  a  manner  not  too  palpably  that 


142 


THE    IMPORTANCE 


of  condescension,   (though    you    are   not,    perhaps, 
very   fastidious  on  this  point,)  you   are   elated   as  if 
you   had  acquired  some  great  accession  of  intrinsic 
worth.     You   soHcitously  watch   for  still   more   une- 
quivocal tokens  of  the  gracious  disposition,  and  lor 
occasions  of  putting  yourselves  in  the  way  to  receive 
them.     And  the  progress  of  your  success  is  probably 
marked   by  a   more  stately  or   a  more   condescend- 
ing manner,  assumed   toward  your  inf(;riors.      Some 
ot  you,  01  prouder  temperament,   and  vigorous  tal- 
ent, disdaining   all   the  servile   expedients,  aspire  to 
comm  nd  the  estimation  and   respectful    attention  of 
the   higher   favourites    of  fortune.       And   when   you 
have  in  a  measure   done  so,  you  exult  as  if  it  were 
some  grand  victory.     It  appears   to  you   a   splendid 
acl  ievement  to  have  conquered  possession,  by  means 
of  solely  personal  qualifications,  of  a  ground  where 
you  stand  on   nearly  an  equality,  in  effect,  with  per- 
sons whose  honours  and  importance  in  the  world  may 
consist  alone  in  the   splendour  of  their  external  cir- 
cums  ances.     You  may  affect  to  depreciate  this  ex- 
trinsic   importance    of   theirs ;    but   you    are    vastly 
grai  fied  by   that  kind  of  community  with  them  to 
which  your  abilities    and  exertions    have   mounted 
you. — Thus,  "man  worships  man,"  as   a  method  in- 
stinctively adopted  in  aid  of  each  man's  worship  of 
himself. 

Now  this  habitual  passion  and  labour  to  realize 
some  imaginary  element  of  well-being  in  the  good 
graces  of  your  superior  fellow-mortals,  may  have  so 
debased  the  temper  of  your  spirit,  that  any  admoni- 


OF   RELIGION.  143 

tion  suggested  to  withdraw  and  raise  your  thoughts 
toward  him  who  is  supreme   to  judge,  to  bless,   and 
to  confer  honour,  may  be  like  calling  the  attention 
of  an  uncultivated  rustic  to  the  sublimities  of  astron- 
omy.    The  infinite  greatness  of  God  above  all  things, 
the  obligation  of  a  constant  reference   to   him,  the 
honour  that  comes  from  him,  the  duty  of  aspiring   to 
be  acknowledged  by  him  with  approbation,  and  the 
glory    of  possessing  it, —  all    these    are    but    feeble 
glimpses  on  your    apprehension.     But  this  is  a  de- 
graded and  guilty  perdicament.     Endeavour  to  think 
what  it  must  be  to  be  valuing  yourselves  just  so  much 
the  more,  in  proportion  as  you  succeed  in    prevail- 
ing on    these  earthen  demi-gods    of  your  prostrate 
superstition    to    accept,    and    sparingly  reward,  the 
homage   which  you  refuse   to  the  Almighty.     Think 
what   it  is  to  watch  and  wait  with  anxiety,  with  ma- 
noeuvres of  insinuation,  with  patience  resolutely  main- 
tained, or  impatience  unavailingly  indulged,  and  even 
with  sacrifices  and  self-denial,  for  looks  and  expres- 
sions   of  complaisance,    acknowledging  you  as  not 
unknown  or    despised,  from  creatures  of  your  own 
kind,  possibly  of  little  worth,  and  insignificant  but  for 
their  appendages   of  fortune,  so  soon  to  be  resigned  ; 
while  you    are  totally  regardless  of  that    sovereign 
Power  who  is  inviting  you  to  the  honour  of  being 
acquainted   with   Him.     And    when    your  vanity    is 
gratified,  in  thinking  how  you  stand  exhibited  in  the 
view   of  other   men  as  enjoying   a  measure   of  the 
dearly  bought  privilege,  one  serious  reflection  might 
expose  to  you  what  ignominy  inexpressible  it  is,  to 


144  THE    IMPORTANCE 

be  elated  at  appearing  before  a  portion  of  society  with 
the  distinction  of  some  flattering  attention  from  your 
superiors,  and  to  be  perfectly  indifferent  in  what  ac- 
count you  shall  be  seen  to  be  held  by  the  Judge  of 
the  world,  when  men  and  angels  will  be  the  witnesses 
of  the  estimation. 

Men  of  the  world  might  be  addressed  on  one 
other  very  general  characteristic  of  their  spirit  and 
proceeding.  Many  of  you  are  zealously  intent  on 
the  advancement  and  amply  endowed  establishment 
of  your  families  ;  ambitiously  compassing  for  them, 
at  whatever  moral  cost  or  hazard,  the  utmost  quan- 
tity of  the  materials  of  prosperity.  Under  the  con- 
sciousness, though  little  and  reluctantly  brought  into 
any  distinctness  of  thought,  that  your  own  tenure  is 
but  for  a  very  limited  term,  the  mind  instinctively 
seeks  to  escape  into  any  factitious  mode  of  extend- 
ing the  interest  of  mortal  existence,  and  yields  to 
some  undefined  sort  of  deception,  as  if  in  your  sur- 
viving descendants  you  were  to  retain  some  kind  of 
sympathetic  life  yourselves.  In  this  enigmatical 
feeling,  for  yourselves  and  them,  you  study,  and 
scheme,  and  toil,  to  place  them  on  the  most  advan- 
tageous ground,  or  in  the  way  to  attain  it.  And  this 
being  effected,  the  great  business  for  them  is  accom- 
plished !  How  often  we  have  been  struck  with  won- 
der in  observing  some  of  you,  dwelling  with  delight 
and  pride  on  the  prosperous  introduction  into  life, 
and  the  fine  prospects,  of  one  and  another  branch  of 
your  family,  and  evidently  w^ith  an  entire  inadvert- 
ence to  any  greater  concern  affecting  their  welfare. 


OF     RELIGION.  145 

Secure  the  primary  object,  of  their  passing  through 
life  in  a   handsome   style,  in   fair  repute,  and   with 
plenty  of  the  world's  accommodations  at  their  com- 
mand, and  that  other  affair,  of  their  being  accounta- 
ble to  God,  of  its  being   their  chief  business  in  life 
to   be  his  servants,  may  be   left  as  an  insignificant 
matter,  about  which  you  do  not,  and  they  need  not, 
take  any  trouble.     You  are  thus  willing   to  be  desti- 
tute of  religion  virtually  beyond  your  individual  ca- 
pacity,  and   to  take  on  you   the  weight  of  responsi- 
bility   for    its    exclusion  from    your   relative  sphere. 
You  are  consenting,  as  it  were,  to  be  irreligious  both 
in  yourselves  and   in   those   who  are  to  survive  you  ; 
saying,  Let  us  form  a  family  compact  for  the   pro- 
longation  of  impiety  ;    a  patriarch   and  a  posterity 
estranged  from  the  Father  in  heaven.     But,  thus  to 
render  yourselves  expressly  their  authorities   for  liv- 
ing without  God,  is  it  not  a  most  sinister  and  fearful 
office  that  you    perform  for  them  ?     When  they  shall 
find  that  all  you  have  wished  and  schemed  for  them, 
and  incited  them  to  attain,  has  left  their  main  inter- 
est abandoned  to  ruin;  that  paternal  care  has  oper- 
ated systematically  to  betray  them  out  of  all  recol- 
lection and  all  favour  of  the  mightiest  Patron,  what 
will  be  the  language  of  the  thanks  they  will  return 
you  ?     And  think  what  it  will  be  to  be  associated 
with   them  in  the  natural  result  of  this  present  es- 
trangement from  him,  in  a  sad  exile,  at  last,  from  his 
presence.     And  see,   in   this  condition,  and  in  that 
prospect,  how  alienation  from  God  destroys  the  value 
13 


146  THE     IMPORTANCE 

of  that  one  affection  which  is  always  represented  as 
the  most  genuine  and  faithful  of  human  charities. 

These    exemplifications,    with  the   questions   and 
censures  on  them,  have  been  attempted  in  a  form  to 
lead  you,  men  of  the  world,  into  such  reflection  as 
would  verify  to  your  own  minds,  that  your  prevailing 
spirit   actually  does  disown    your    relations  to  God, 
that  it  is  irreligion ;  and  to  expose   to  you  that  such 
a  condition  is  fatally  wrong.     They  have  represented 
that  irreligion  chiefly  as  it  is  apparent  in   reference 
to  the    more  commanding  and  awful   characters  in 
which  the  Divine  Being  is  to  be   acknowledged,  as 
supremely  great  and  powerful,  as  present  with  per- 
fect intelligence   through   all   existence,  as  the   ob- 
server and  judge   of  all  moral  agents.     We  should 
have  more  distinctly  admonished  you  to  take  account 
how  5^ou  are  affected  toward  him  in  his  character  of 
sovereign  goodness,  in  which  you  might  have  access 
to  find   infinite   resources  for  felicity.     Reflect  what 
it  is  that  you  do,  in  declining  all  communication  w^ith 
him  in  this  relation.     In  a  certain  possible  state  of 
your  spirit  toward  him,  you  would  have  the  sense  of 
his  attention  resting  on  you,  directly  and  individual- 
ly, as  a  favoured  creature,  with  emanations  of  be- 
nignity which  would  breathe  a  deep  emphatic  vitality 
into  your  soul.     And  from  all  the  objects  and  inter- 
ests  which  would    diversely  engage  your  thoughts 
and  affections,  you  would  return,  at  intervals,  to  be 
sensibly  in  the  presence  of  a  Divine  Friend,  and 
realize  it  still  again  as  both  the  delight  and  the  en- 
ergy of  your  existence.     Think,  then,  what  it  is  ta 


OF   RELIGION.  147 

be  so  compacted  and  consubstantial,  as  it  were,  with 
the  world,  as  in  effect  to  say,  Nothing  of  all  this  is 
mine,  and  for  nothing  of  all  this  do  I  care.  I  have 
no  adaptation  nor  desire  to  reciprocate  sentiments 
with  any  being  of  higher  order  than  myself.  If  God 
do  really  offer  himself  for  such  communication  with 
men,  I  must  forego  the  privilege,  of  which  I  could 
have  no  possession  without  I  know  not  what  vast 
change  in  my  spirit  and  habits.  But  indeed  I  have 
no  conception  of  such  a  mystical  source  of  delight. 
How  should  any  one  receive  tokens  of  special  fa- 
vour, responsive  to  his  own  emotions  and  aspirations, 
from  a  Being  who  never  appears  nor  speaks  to  the 
world,  and  whose  concern  is  with  the  wide  creation 
as  a  whole  ?  However  it  may  be,  such  a  spiritual 
sympathy  is  not  for  my  experience ;  and  I  must 
content  myself  with  such  good  as  I  can  draw  from 
intercourse  with  the  objects  in  the  scene  around  me. 
With  these  is  my  soul  in  communion ;  they  are  my 
happiness  ;  and  do  not  disturb  me  with  warnings  of 
what  it  will  be  to  go  into  the  presence  of  God  as  a 
stranger  when  I  must  leave  them.  I  hope  that,  in 
some  way  or  other,  I  shall  have  sufficiently  made 
peace  with  him,  against  the  time  when  1  am  to  find 
myself  present   with  him,  and  no  longer   with  them. 

If  your  devotedness  to  the  world  be  thus  a  fatal 
alienation  from  God,  it  is  comparatively  but  little  to 
add,  that  it  places  you  out  of  fraternity  of  feeling 
and  character  with  the  best  and  noblest  of  mankind. 
This  may  generally  not  cause  you  much  mortifica- 


14S  THE    IMPORTANCE 

tion;  and,  lest  it  should  do  so,  you  have  recourse  to 
the  expedient  of  depreciating  the  religious  character, 
as  exemplified  in  those  who  professedly  bear  it.  But 
your  attention  must  have  been  sometimes  arrested 
by  such  examples,  on  record  or  in  the  living  world, 
as  defied  your  self-defensive  malice.  You  have  be- 
held a  real,  unquestionable  devotion  to  God,  to  truth, 
to  holiness,  and  to  another  world.  You  have  ob- 
served men  living  in  habitual  acknowledgment  of 
the  divine  presence  and  authority ;  preserving  a 
faithful  conscience  and  obeying  it,  in  scenes  of  temp- 
tation ;  maintaining  fidelity  to  their  high  principle 
through  all  changes  of  season  and  condition;  amidst 
the  troubles  of  their  lot  deriving  consolation  from 
above  and  from  hereafter ;  throughout  their  mortal 
course  still  looking  forward  to  the  end  ;  and  termi- 
nating it  in  the  assurance  that  they  were  "  dying  in 
the  Lord."  There  was  left  you  no  cause  or  power 
to  doubt  that  this  was  all  genuine,  and  you  felt  self- 
convicted  of  baseness,  if  you  affected  to  question  it. 
You  were  also  constrained  to  admit,  that  these  are 
the  true  exemplifications  of  religion  ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, all  cavils  raised  against  it  from  the  unworthy 
character  of  many  of  its  ostensible  adherents,  are 
wickedly  dishonest.  To  say  that  but  few  professed 
religionists  exhibit  this  combination  of  qualities  in 
such  high  excellence,  is  saying  nothing,  unless  you 
could  assert  that  such  excellence,  when  it  does  ex- 
ist, is  something  more,  or  something  else,  than  re- 
ligion. 


OF    RELIGIOJf*  149 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  difficulty  to  decide,  what 
degree  of  deficiency  of  such  a  character  may  not  be 
incompatible  with  the  essential  of  personal  religion. 
But  at  all  events,  here  are  placed  in  your  view  those 
whom  religion  has  rendered  the  very  best  of  the  hu- 
man race.  Nor  can  you  evade  the  point  for  which 
we  cite  them  by  saying,  they  were  recluses  and  as- 
cetics, and  therefore  inappropriate  examples  for  any 
use  of  condemnatory  comparison  with  you,  who  are 
necessarily  occupied  with  the  business  of  the  world. 
For  many  of  them  were  much  and  variously  em- 
ployed in  that  business ;  and  showed  how  religion 
may  be  mingled  with  secular  interests  and  transac- 
tions, so  as  to  retain  its  own  brightness  and  throw 
lustre  on  them. 

Now,  we  are  confident  you  cannot  deny  that  there 
are  moments  of  transient  light  on  your  mind,  when 
the  conviction  comes  upon  you,  that  this  is  the  wor- 
thiest, noblest,  most  admirable  order  of  human  char- 
acter ;  however  indistinctly  you  may  apprehend  some 
of  the  most  refined  principles  on  which  it  is  formed, 
and  however  disposed  you  may  be  to  the  imputation 
of  mysticism  and  excess.  On  any  question  arising 
in  your  reflections,  luho  are  the  most  truly  estimable 
and  dignified,  the  most  wise  and  the  most  safe,  your 
thoughts  involuntarily  glance  toward  this  class  of 
men,  and  you  cannot  make  them  fix  on  any  other. 
They  are  the  honourable  and  select  of  mankind,  the 
"  people  favoured  of  the  Lord,"  and  Balaam  cannot 
blast  or  degrade  them  for  you. 
13* 


150  THE    IMPORTANCE 

And  shall  it  be  your  only  regret  that  you  cannot 
reduce  them  to  your  own  level  ?  Would  you  deem 
it  a  desirable  thing  that  they  could  be  re-converted 
(such  as  are  living)  to  that  worldly  character  which 
now  separates  you  so  far  from  their  community  ;  so 
that  there  should  be  none  to  shine  in  contrast  with 
you,  as  exemplifying  the  possible  glory  of  that  nature 
which  you  degrade  ?  Reflect  soberly  whether,  if 
you  did  see,  and  feel,  and  act,  like  the  best  of  those 
men,  it  would  not  be  a  most  happy  change  from  your 
present  condition.  Would  it  not  be  happy  that  the 
state  of  your  mind  corresponded  to  one  inspiring- 
sentiment  of  these  men, — that  they  have  a  Master 
in  heaven  whom  it  is  delightful  to  serve  5  to  another^ 
that  no  faithful  effort  or  sacrifice  will,  as  to  its  re- 
ward, be  lost;  to  another,  that  every  victory  over 
sin  surpasses  the  value  of  all  worldly  successes  or 
triumphs;  to  another,  that  their  guilt  is  pardoned 
through  the  divine  mercy  ;  to  another,  that  they,  and 
all  their  concerns,  are  under  a  sovereign  guardianship 
which  can  never  err  or  fail,  and  that,  therefore,  in 
every  juncture  they  have  the  mightiest  power  in  the 
universe  at  hand  for  their  assistance  ;  and  to  still 
another,  that  one  sensible  interest  in  transacting  the 
successive  affairs  assigned  them  in  this  world,  is  in 
the  circumstance,  that  each  one  accomplished  has 
carried  them  so  much  farther  toward  quitting  the 
whole,  for  something  better?  Comprehend  in  the 
account  whatever  other  things  form  a  part  of  the  dif- 
ference which  religion  makes  between  them  and 
you  ;  allow  this  difi'erence  to  verify  itself  to  you  as  a 


OF    RELIGION.  151 

reality ;  and  then  say  whether  you  can  be  fully  con- 
tent and  self-complacent  in  standing  thus  dissociated. 
Estimate  impartially  any  favourite  worldly  object, 
pursued  or  possessed,  and  think  whether  that  would 
not  be  well  surrendered  to  place  you  in  a  community 
of  situation  with  these  christian  spirits.  In  a  lucid 
hour,  you  cannot  but  perceive  that,  by  being  asso- 
ciated with  them  in  congeniality  of  feeling  and  ac- 
tion, you  would  be  in  harmony  with  those  grand 
laws  and  relations  of  your  existence  with  which  you 
are  now  at  variance,  and  often  at  war.  Those  bonds 
of  connexion  with  the  highest  objects,  adamantine 
bonds,  which  with  all  your  striving  you  cannot  break, 
but  which  you  now  feel,  when  recognized  at  all,  as 
fatal  chains  to  what  you  cannot  love,  and  to  a  doom 
which  you  dread  and  cannot  escape,  would  then  be 
vital  conductors  through  which  you  would  communi- 
cate with  heaven.  United  to  that  assembly,  you 
would  stand  on  a  ground  where  beams  descend  from 
the  eternal  sun,  where  angels  visit,  where  afflictions 
are  turned  to  blessings,  where  death  is  divested  of 
his  terrors.  You  would  be  able  to  say,  with  cordial 
emphasis.  Wherever  their  souls  shall  be,  there  let 
mine  be  forever. 

On  the  other  hand,  look  at  the  men  with  whom 
you  are  now  conjoined  and  assimilated.  As  your 
own  men  of  the  world,  the  models  to  which  you  con- 
form yourselves,  the  class  wdth  whose  destiny  you 
are  committing  your  own,  it  might  be  presumed  they 
should  have  your  approbation,  your  confidence,  your 
sincere    affection.     But  is  it  so.^    Take  an  honest 


152  THE    IMPORTANCE 

account  of  what  you  think  of  them,  in  moments  when 
you  are  drawn  a  little  aside  from  the  bustle  in  which 
you  are  mingled  with  them,  and  when,  for  a  short 
time,  you  feel  your  league  with  them  somewhat  re- 
laxed. At  such  times,  you  will  have  found  yourself 
looking  at  them  with  a  cold,  keen,  judicial  inspec- 
tion ;  recalling  to  mind  their  conduct,  toward  one 
another  or  yourself;  observing  their  motives,  and 
admitting  an  estimate  of  these  men  of  your  prefer- 
ence and  fraternity.  The  narrowness  of  their  pur- 
poses, their  selfishness,  the  world-hardened  cast  of 
their  feelings,  and  their  unsound  principles,  stood 
palpably  exposed  in  your  vietv.  Confess  how  often 
you  have  been  thrown  into  a  very  different  train  of 
thinking  of  them  from  that  of  considering  them  as 
your  friends,  your  own  chosen  favourite  class.  Con- 
fess that  you  do  not,  and  cannot,  feel  a  genuine  es- 
teem for  them,  not  to  say  affection  or  veneration. 
You  do  not  repose  a  tranquil  confidence  in  them. 
You  have  to  watch,  and  guard,  and  surround  your- 
selves with  every  precaution.  With  many  of  them 
you  find  yourselves  in  undisguised  competition  ;  and 
with  your  very  allies  and  coadjutors  you  dare  not 
remit  the  exercise  of  a  silent  vigilance  on  their  move- 
ments, and  all  the  indications  of  their  dispositions 
and  designs, — a  vigilance  which,  you  need  not  doubt, 
is  exercised  on  you  in  return.  What  invaluable 
beings  you  are  to  one  another,  if  you  be  right  in  this 
reciprocal  distrust ! 

Even  as  to  religion,  careless  as  you  are  about  it, 
you  occasionally  feel  a  certain  indistinct  impression. 


OF    RELIGION.  153 

that  some  other  worldly  men  are  too  careless  ;  espe- 
cially when  you  observe  any  of  them  in  declining 
health,  or  far  advanced  in  age,  as  eagerly  intent  on 
worldly  pursuits  as  if  they  had  the  assurance  of  half 
a  century  of  life  before  them.  You  could  not  avoid 
some  perception  of  incongruity  in  this,  which  has  be- 
trayed you  into  the  expression,  Jt  is  really  time  for 
that  man  to  begin  to  think  a  little  of  other  concerns. 
It  may  very  possibly  have  happened  to  you  to  be  dis- 
gusted, and  almost  shocked,  to  see  one  of  }our  tho- 
rough men  of  the  world  resuming  all  his  ease,  vivaci- 
ty, and  ambition,  for  playing  his  part  in  it,  with 
hardly  the  shortest  interval  after  some  sad  event  in 
his  family  or  nearest  connexions.  If  such  an  event 
brought  him  an  accession  of  temporal  advantage,  he 
waited,  perhaps,  barely  "one  little  month,"  to  rush, 
with  the  impulse  of  his  new  forces,  and  the  exulta- 
tion of  having  acquired  them,  into  the  busiest  or  the 
gayest  scenes  of  life.  Supposing,  again,  that  you 
have  been  dangerously  ill,  and  visited  by  one  of  your 
fraternity,  you  have  seen  what  a  man  of  the  world 
can  do  in* the  way  of  consolation.  What  was  the 
balm  which  that  physician  applied  ?  If  you  could 
not  believe  the  assurances  which  he  made  to  you, 
(whether  he  thought  so  or  not.)  that  you  would  re- 
cover, what  resource  was  presented  to  you  besides.'^ 

In  short,  you  will  not  deny  that,  if  there  could  be 
given  you  what  you  could  believe  to  be  an  undecep- 
tive  presage,  that  though  associated  with  the  men  of 
the  world  now,  you  should  not  be  so  hereafter,  it 
would  please  you  exceedingly.     We  mean,  it  would 


154  THE     IMPORTANCE 

do  SO  at  those  most  thoughtful  seasons,  when  the  real 
quality  of  your  worldly  association,  its  heartlessness, 
its  want  of  mutual  approbation,  its  poverty  of  the 
means  of  alleviating  sorrow,  and  its  destitution  of 
moral  dignity,  are  exposed,  in  a  degree,  to  your  re- 
luctant apprehension  ;  and  when  to  all  this  is  added, 
that  its  advantages  and  pleasures,  whatever  they  may 
be,  are  limited,  both  in  fact  and  hope,  to  a  diminutive 
portion  of  your  existence.  This  closing  consideration 
throws  a  deeply  melancholy  character  over  the  whole 
vast  spectacle  of  your  multitudes  and  activities.  A 
crowd  of  human  beings  in  prodigious  ceaseless  stir  to 
keep  the  dust  of  the  earth  in  motion,  and  then  to 
sink  into  it,  while  all  beyond  is  darkness  and  desola- 
tion !  It  is  as  if  a  great  army,  appointed  to  march 
on  some  magnificent  enterprise  of  distant  conquest, 
should  confine  themselves  to  waste  all  their  energy 
in  an  idle  tumult  of  strifes  and  revellings  in  their 
camp,  and  obstinately  stay  on  the  ground  to  perish 
away,  and  be  interred  there. 

On  a  whole  view  of  these  representations,  it  must 
needs  appear,  that,  in  your  devotion  to  the  world, 
you  are  losing  the  grand  object  of  your  existence. 
This  is  the  plain  brief  sentence  on  your  course  of 
life.  And  it  is  most  striking  to  think  how  insignifi- 
cantly it  may  sound  to  you,  whose  guilt  and  calamity 
it  pronounces.  Will  you  say  what  combination  of 
words  that  you  could  hear,  would  pass  more  lightly 
off.  You  have  heard  it,  and,  perhaps  within  a  few 
minutes  after,  retained  in  your  consciousness  no  trace 
of  any  thing  impressive  having  been  made  sensible  to 


OF  RELIGION.  155 

your  mind.     Are  you  not  tempted  to  repeat    it  for 
the  mere  curiosity   of  observing  how  much  at  ease 
you  can  be  with  what  seems  of  such  formidable  im- 
port ;  as  if  you  were   playing  with  a  snake,  rendered 
harmless  by  the  deprivation  of  its   fangs,  or  by  your 
possessing  the  Egyptian's  charm  against  them.     Re- 
peat the  sentence,  which  affirms  you  are  disowning 
and  losing  the  great  purpose  for  which   you  are  sent 
into   the   world,    and  smile  at   the  seriousness  which 
thinks   it   an    expression   of  fearful   meaning.     Say 
you  are  sensible  of  nothing  lost,  as  long  as  the  good 
things  of  the   world  are   gained.     "  Thou   sayest,  I 
am  rich,  and  increased  with  goods,  and  have  need  of 
nothing  ;  and  knowest  not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and 
miserable,   and  poor,  and  blind,    and  naked  ?"     It  is 
not,   however,   that  you  are   incapable  of  being  pro- 
foundly affected   by  the    short  proposition  in   words 
of  something  disastrous  in  your  situation.     The  few^ 
words  that  should  announce  to  you  that  your  house, 
or  other  valuable  property,  was   in   flames  5  or  that, 
(supposing  you  a  trafficker  by  sea.)  a  ship,  in  which 
you   had  an  important   venture,    had  been  last  seen 
driving,  in  a  shattered  state,  at  the  mercy  of  a  storm  5 
or  the  judgment  positively  signified  to  you  on  a  top- 
ical  disease,  that   you   could  be    relieved  only   by  a 
frightful   amputation ;  or   the   most  laconic  whisper 
that  should   apprize  you  of  a  design  formed  against 
your  life ;  would   produce   such  an   intense  excite- 
ment, as  if  all  your  strongest  past  emotions,  extinct 
and  almost  forgotten,  came,  as  by  a  general  resur- 
rection,  again  to  life,  combined   in  one  tumultuous 


156  THE  IMPORTANCE 

alarm.  And  yet  the  melancholy  truth,  pressed  upon 
you  in  admonition,  that  the  primary  object  of  life, 
the  grand  venture  and  value  of  your  existence,  is 
thus  far  lost,  and  in  the  course  to  be  finally  lost, 
through  your  devotion  to  the  world,  may  leave  your 
mind  unmoved,  to  await  the  stronger  impression  of 
the  next  inconsiderable  temporal  misfortune. 

But  you    are  awaiting    also,  little    as  you   may  ap- 
prehend or  care   for  it,  impressions  of  another  order, 
and   from   another  cause.     They  are    reserved,  most 
inevitably  to  come,  after  a  certain  succession,  longer 
or  shorter,  of  emotions    from   ordinary    causes  shall 
have  had   their   times  and    be  gone  by.     A  thought- 
ful religious    mind  often  perceives    intimations  con- 
cerning you,  prophetic    images,  as  it   were  mingling 
with  the  sight  of  your  persons,  while    it  beholds  you 
thus   absorbed  in   vvordly  interests,  and   insensible  of 
what  you  are  doing    in  throwing    away  an  infinitely 
greater.     That  man,    and  that  other,    how    little  do 
they    care  that    all  the   powers  of  their   being,    and 
periods  of  their   time,  are  useless  for  the  noblest  and 
the   absolutely   indispensable  purpose   of  life  !  How 
content  that  what  they  are  acquiring  should  be  at  the 
cost  of  what  they  are  losing  !     How  easily   they  can 
say,  in  effect,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,"  to  any  thing 
that  would  tell  them  what  it  is  that  they  are  sacrific- 
ing to  their  idol,  and  warn  them  of  the  consequence. 
But,  to   each  of  them   an   hour  is  coming,  at  some 
certain  distance  in  approaching  time,  when  they  will 
awake  from  the  infatuation,  to  the  surprise  and  dis- 
may of  seeing  that  their  life  has  been  so  far  in  vain. 


OF    RELIGION.  157 

They  will  look  back  to  behold   it,  with   all  its  fair 
and   precious  possibilities,  blasted  and  desolated  by 
their  having  passed  over  it.     They  will  look  back  to 
measure  how  far  it  might  have   carried   them  on  to- 
ward the  possession  of  incorruptible   treasures,  un- 
fading honours,  and  eternal  inheritance ;  and  then  to 
acknowledge  the   miserable  fact,  that  it  has  not  ad- 
vanced them  one  stage  or  step.     It  will  come, — the 
hour  which  is  charged  with  the  destination   to  afflict 
them.     There   may  be    temporal   grievances  or  mis- 
fortunes,   affixed    by  divine   appointment    to  certain 
parts  of  the  time  coming  on  ;  but  infallibly  there  is, 
somewhere  in   the   train,  the   hour  commissioned  to 
bear  the  yet   unkindled   element  which   will  flame 
against  their  consciences.     Will  it  be  while  there  are 
yet  to  follow  days  of  protractad  grace,   and  possible 
"  newness  of  life ;"  or   will  it  be   the   conclusion  of 
their  time,  and  lighten  on  them  only  that  they  may 
read  the  sentence  of  an  inevitable  doom  ^     Or  is  the 
appointed  moment,  of  that  awakening  to  the  convic- 
tion that  life  has   been  expended  in  vain,  reserved  to 
come   after  the  last  of  the   hours  on  earth  ? — With 
such  thoughts  the  serious  observer  looks  toward  fu- 
turity on  your  account,  while  you  are  heedlessly,  and 
perhaps  you  call  it  pleasantly,  occupying  your  life 
in  the  very  manner  which   will   bring  at  length  this 
conviction,  that  you  have   slighted  and  lost  its  chief 
end. 

Allow  us  to  remind  you  of  so  obvious  a  considera- 
tion, as  that  of  the  rapid  passing  away  of  your  life. 
14 


158  THE     IMPORTANCE 

A.  large  proportion  of  you,  of  the  character  in  ques- 
tion, have  reached  its  middle  period,  many  are  going 
down  into  its  decline,  some  have  the  certainty  of 
being  near  its  termination.  And  you  can  not  but 
have  been  often  struck  with  the  reflection,  how  soon 
each  period  of  it,  which  had  been  before  you,  was 
gone  into  the  past.  Have  you  never  felt  an  impulse 
to  quarrel  with  time  for  leaving  you  so  fast,  after  you 
had  perhaps  been  impatient  for  some  particular  por- 
tion of  it  to  arrive  ^  But  it  would  neither  stay  to 
be  your  companion,  nor  slacken  to  receive  your  re- 
proach. It  seems  to  come  past  you  but  for  the  pur- 
pose of  stealing  away  your  life  ;  each  day,  each 
hour,  taking  off  a  share  of  that  as  its  spoil.  Ob- 
serve how  the  theft  and  diminution  are  incessantly 
going  on,  while  you  are  planning,  or  consulting,  or 
executing,  while  you  are  striving  or  relaxing,  exult- 
ing in  success  of  fretting  at  failure.  The  one  con- 
tinual fact  is,  that  life  is  speeding  off. 

Now  surely  it  is  high  time  to  adopt  a  determined 
policy  with  respect  to  that  which,  while  of  immense 
importance  to  you,  is  thus  continually  deserting  you. 
And  the  right  policy  is,  not  to  attach  yourselves,  as 
your  main  object  of  interest,  to  any  thing  to  which 
life  cannot  be  attached  and  fixed  in  abiding  conjunc- 
tion. In  other  words,  how  is  any  thing  practically 
of  value  but  as  you  can  have  life  for  its  prosecution, 
possession  and  use  ?  There  are  \r  the  world  riches, 
*'  respects  of  honour,"  amusements,  gratifications  of 
curiosity,  delights  of  the  senses,  what  you  please. 
If  you  could  command  life  to  delay,  or  to  take  a  fixed 


OF    RELIGION.  159 

state,  so  that  you  might  effectually  appropriate  these, 
and  unite  them  as  it  were  to  your  being,  that  were 
something.  But  by  the  rapid  departure  of  life,  that 
Is  to  say,  of  yourselves,  you  are  denied  the  essential 
condition  of  making  them  yours.  You  but  snatch 
at  them  in  passing,  hold  them  for  a  moment,  are 
carried  away  from  them  ;  leaving  them  to  make  a 
similar  mockery  of  offering  themselves  to  the  next 
coveters  in  the  ever-transient  succession.  If  you, 
believing  yourselves  to  be  immortal  beings,  can  be 
content  with  this,  if  you  are  willing  to  place  your  all 
in  things  of  which  your  fleeting  life  allows  you  to 
try  the  good  but  for  a  moment,  how  mysterious  is  it 
that  such  beings  should  have  come  into  the  world  to 
be  so  befooled  I 

You  will  hardly  be  so  unwitting  as  to  retort,  that 
neither  can  life   bo  stayed,  and   rendered  a  durable 
condition,  for  taking    and  holding  the  good  of  the 
spiritual  interests,  any  more    than   of  these  temporal 
ones.     This  would  be  true  in  but  so  narrow  a  sense 
as  not  to  be  worth   the   saying.     For  the  cases  are 
infinitely   different.      It    is    in    the  nature  of   those 
higher  interests    that  they  belong  to  this   life    only 
as  a  brief  preparatory  term,  the  great  scene  of  their 
enjoyment  necessarily  being  hereafter.      The   main 
principle  of  the  aspirant's  connexion  with  them  here 
is  avowedly  not  that   of  possession,  but  of  anticipa- 
tion ;  and  in  that  anticipation  he  sees  combined  with 
them  an  endless  life,  as  his  condition   for  a  full  pos- 
session of  them.     So  that  he  may  be  more  than  con- 
tent, he  may  be  gratified,  that  the  present  life  is  so 


160  THE    IMPORTANCE 

fleeting,  because,  in  being  so,  it  hastens  him  toward 
that  where  the  circumstance  of  transiency,  insepara- 
ble from  the  experience  of  a  created  being,  will  seem 
lost  in  the  character  of  permanence.  For,  though 
he  must  possess  his  felicities  in  a  succession  of  dura- 
tion, the  assured  eternity  of  that  duration  will  infuse 
a  certain  effect  of  the  permanence  of  the  whole,  to 
be  perceived  in  every  successive  point ;  thus  pre- 
cluding the  character  of  evanescence  from  tbe  series 
perpetually  passing.  In  contrast  to  all  this,  your 
objects  belong  exclusively  to  time,  and  to  the  very 
short  time  of  your  life  on  earth.  And  therefore, 
the  speedy  pace  of  life  is  the  rapid  parting  from  all 
you  are  possessing,  or  endeavouring  to  possess. 
And  the  possession  itself  during  its  brief  continu- 
ance, is  turned  to  vanity,  by  your  knowing  that  this 
pressing  haste,  with  which  you  are  carried  away 
from  each  particular  of  it,  is  just  so  much  fatal  speed 
toward  your  losing  it  all. 

But  the  consideration  of  the  rapid  progress  of  life 
toward  a  close,  is  enforced  on  you  by  more  familiar 
and  plausible  forms  of  admonition.  There  must 
often  be  brought  to  your  remembrance  events  and 
circumstances  in  your  experience,  which  appear  as 
receding  far  into  the  past.  Can  these  recollections 
be  always  unaccompanied  by  the  obvious  reflection, 
If  all  the  time  since  then  be  so  much  taken  out  of 
my  life,  how  reduced  must  be  the  remainder;  and, 
if  the  interval  between  that  time  and  this,  in  one 
sense  so  wide,  appears  to  have  been  very  soon  pass- 
ed  over,  can  I  be  reckoning   on  a  very  slow  move- 


OF     RELIGION.  161 

ment,  which  shall  afford  leisure  for  all  manner  of 
occupations  or  diversions,  in  passing  over  any  space 
that  can  be  yet  in  reserve  for  me  to  traverse  ?     Per- 
haps some  of  you  are  conscious  of  a  feeling  occa- 
sionally   arising,  \v'hich  would  shape  itself  into  the 
wish  that  you  could  be  young  again.     Is  this  senti- 
ment  dismissed    without   reminding  you    what   pro- 
gress you  have    made,  and   what  despatch    you    are 
makitig,  in  the  journey   of  life  ?     Some  of  you  see 
your  descendants  already  busy  in  the  worldly  career  ; 
can  you  have  evaded  the  suggestion,  what  period  of 
your  life    it  must  be   to  which  this  stage  in  theirs  is 
parallel ;  with  this   tliought    further,  how  soon  they 
will,  if  they  live,  have  reached  the  same  point  in  theirs 
as  you  have  in  yours  ;  and  where  will   you  be  then  ? 
When    sometimes  a  tempting    occasion  is   presented 
to  you,  of  embarking  in  a  new  scheme,  the   thought 
will  come  over  you,   like  one  of  the  cold  winds  pre- 
cursory of  winter,   that  you  are   gone  too  far  for  any 
reasonable  prospect  of  living  long  enough  to  see  such 
a  project  through    to   its  desired    result.     You    are 
compelled  to  a  brief  reluctant  computation,  of  about 
what  stage  in  its  prosecution  might  very  probably  be 
the  last  in  the  course  of  your  activities  under  the  sun. 
Some  of  you  may  be  seen  building  a  house,  for  your 
more  respectable  and  commodious  residence  in  the 
latter  part  of  your  life.     When,  in  such  a  case,  we 
have  observed  the  care  and  vigilance  exerted  to  en- 
sure that  every  part  and  adjustment  be   firm  and  du- 
rable, the  question  would  occur.     Is  this  person,  so 
14-^ 


162  THE    IMPORTANCE 

careful  about  the  soundness  of  material,  and  security 
of  fixture,  of  each  beam,  each  board,  each  carved 
ornament, — is  he  not  silently  visited  by  any  thought 
of  where  he  shall  be,  long  before  the  time  that  the 
structure  will  show  any  signs  of  decay,  long  before 
the  time  at  which  it  would  vex  him  to  foresee  there 
would  be  any  such  signs  ?  When  you  are  planting 
young  trees  for  fruit  or  nsfreeable  shade,  can  you 
avoid  the  reflection,  how  likely  it  is,  that  before  these 
trees  will  be  matured  to  their  full  productiveness,  or 
be  amply  spread  and  thickened  round  the  dwelling, 
or  over  the  walks,  you  will  have  entered  another 
kind  of  shade  ?  And  then  "  whose  shall  those  things 
be  which  you  have  provided  ?" 

While  exemplifications  of  so  special  a  cast  will 
bear  directly  on  some  of  you  only,  there  are  many 
things  of  a  more  common  kind,  which  would  admon- 
ish any  of  you  who  would  practise  a  little  reflection. 
Consider  how  often  you  fail  to  complete  what  you 
had  in  intention  limited  to  a  certain  time  5  and  then 
you  say  the  time  was  gone  to  soon  for  you  to  ac- 
complish it.  You  appropriate  a  portion  of  time,  to 
be  taken  from  business,  to  some  pleasurable  pursuit  j 
and  how  soon  you  have  to  say  it  is  gone  like  a  dream  ! 
The  great  changes  of  the  year,  or  some  marked  point 
of  it,  the  anniversary  of  your  nativity  for  instance, 
return  upon  you  by  surprise  ;  it  is  but  as  yesterday, 
you  exclaim,  since  this  was  here  before.  The  ap- 
pointed terms  for  transactions  and  settlements  in  the 
course  of  your  affairs  are  here  upon  you  again,  when 
you  seem  to  have  but  just  got  rid  of  the  last.     Some 


OF   RELIGION.  163 

of  you  have  become  afraid  of  pledging  yourselves  to 
do  one  thing,  and  another,  from  experience  that  the 
time  is  apt  to  be  gone  before  you  can  make  any 
effectual  movements.  Many  of  you  have  begun  to 
remark,  that  it  seems  to  go  faster  now  than  it  did  in 
your  earlier  life.  Some  of  you,  perhaps,  occasionally 
fall  into  a  mood  of  thought  in  which  you  number 
the  years  between  your  present  age  and  the  farthest 
term  to  which  it  is  in  any  way  reasonable,  under  the 
most  favourable  circumstances,  to  calculate  that  you 
may  live ;  and  then  intrudes  the  idea  that,  (even 
supposing  you  assume  that  you  shall  have  so  many 
years  of  life,)  if  they  shall  steal  off  as  fast  as  an  equal 
number  of  the  preceding  ones  seem  to  have  done, 
you  will  very  soon  be  at  the  end.  The  most  aged 
class,  if  they  too  must  still  retain  the  folly  of  reckon- 
ing on  the  future,  unsubdued  by  the  certain  littleness 
of  their  nearly  exhausted  store,  may  consider,  wheth- 
er even  all  the  infirmities  and  burdens  of  the  last 
stage  will  so  retard  the  lapse  of  time,  that  a  very  ^e\w 
more  summers  and  winters  will  not  quickly  have 
vanished  from  between  them  and  the  exit  out  of 
life. 

If  things  in  some  analogy  to  these  were  exhibited 
as  the  fancied  circumstances  of  a  fictitious  order  and 
condition  of  moral  agents,  devised  to  give  a  strong 
image  of  a  state  of  urgency  and  danger,  combined 
with  insensibility,  the  representation  would  excite  no 
little  of  that  sentiment  partaking  of  alarm,  which 
you  can  feel  by  sympathy  for  even  imaginary  beings. 
But  you,  men  of  the  world,  know  that  this  is  a  plain 


164  THE    IMPORTANCE 

description  of  your  actual  situation.  It  is  yourselves 
who  are  beset  by  so  many  circumstances  to  apprize 
you  of  the  rapidity  of  the  course,  by  which  you  are 
passing  out  of  life.  And  your  unhappy  case  is,  that 
you  make  your  life  as  worthless  to  your  true  welfare 
as  it  is  evanescent  in  its  continuance,  by  rejecting 
from  your  care  its  one  grand  business.  You  act  as 
if  you  really  had  understood  your  existence  here  and 
hereafter  not  to  be  the  same  existence  ;  but  that  the 
present  life  was  expressly  appointed  by  the  Creator 
to  be  occupied  with  the  matters  of  this  earth  exclu- 
sively, that  it  was  to  be  altogether  "  of  the  earth 
earthy  ;"  and  that,  for  the  next,  you  are  to  be  liter- 
ally created  anew,  in  a  different  order  of  being,  con- 
stituted in  a  similar  adaptation  to  be  occupied  with 
what  there  may  be  in  another  world,  and  having  no 
reference  or  relation  to  the  previous  and  probationary 
state.  But,  if  such  be  not  the  law  of  your  exist- 
ence, reflect  what  a  fatal  proceeding  you  adopt  in 
so  devoting,  through  this  life,  your  soul  to  this  world, 
that  when  you  leave  it  you  will  find  the  substantial 
thing  that  remains  with  you,  after  all  its  shadows  and 
delusions  are  past,  is  an  unfitness  for  a  better. 

Here  we  conclude  this  long  course  of  remon- 
strance. Perhaps  you  are  ready  to  say  it  is  a  rueful 
and  offensive  representation,  just  such  as  a  splenetic 
spirit,  which  has  quarrelled  with  the  world,  would  be 
gratified  to  make,  in  the  wish  to  poison  the  satisfac- 
tions of  those  who  have  yet  some  cause  to  regard  it 
as  a  friend  j  and  who,  at  all   events,  think  it  yet  too 


OF    RELIGION.  165 

soon  to  fall  Into  hostility  with  themselves.  But  con- 
sider at  whose  cost  it  will  be  that  you  repel  a  state- 
ment which  you  cannot  refute.  The  truth  of  the 
matter  goes,  in  reality,  no  further  off  from  you  for 
being  rejected;  any  more  than  the  hour  of  death  can 
be  deferred  by  refusing  to  think  of  it,  or  by  heed- 
lessness of  the  solemnity  of  the  prospect.  Where 
would  be  the  sense  of  a  man,  (if  such  a  case  could 
be,)  who  should  turn  with  impatient  disgust  from  the 
sight  of  characteristic  morbid  appearances  shown  in 
a  delineation,  and  at  the  same  time  be  well  content  to 
bear  in  his  own  person  the  disease  itself  r  That  the 
preceding  description  of  your  state  is  in  substance 
the  truth,  wo  may  challenge  you  to  deny;  to  deny, 
that  is  to  say,  upon  such  serious  and  honest  consid- 
eration as  you  cannot  refuse  without  being  guilty  of 
the  most  deplorable  trifling,  a  trifling  which  you  will 
in  due  time  meet  with  something  that  will  avenge. 
And  we  may  appeal  to  your  own  reason,  thus  exer- 
cised, what  you  would  think  of  a  doctrine  or  a  teach- 
er, that  would  consent  to  leave  you  satisfied  with  a 
plan  of  life  which,  for  the  sake  of  this  world,  re- 
nounces the  good,  and  braves  the  evil,  of  the  world 
to  come. 

But,  though  the  representation  thus  far  be  of 
menacing  character,  all  is  not  dark.  As  we  have 
seen  in  a  pictured  view  of  Babylon,  supposed  on  the 
eve  of  its  fall,  there  remains  one  portion  of  the 
hemisphere,  and  one  celestial  luminary,  not  yet  ob- 
scured by  the  portentous  shade.  While  no  colours 
can  throw  too  gloomy  an  aspect  on  the  condition  in 


166  THE  IMPORTANCE 

which  you  have  been  described,  there  shines  on  your 
view  still  that  great  resource  to  which  all  this  series 
of  what  may  have  seemed  austere  reprehensions,  has 
been  aimed  to  constrain  your  attention.  And  if  you 
could  be  made  to  apprehend  the  importance,  which 
there  really  is  in  the  considerations  so  inadequately 
conceived  and  expressed,  you  would  be  awakened  to 
wonder  and  gratitude  that,  after  so  constant  and  sys- 
tematic a  rejection  of  the  sovereign  good,  you  should 
not  now  find  "  a  great  gulf  fixed  between  it  and  you." 
On  your  side  of  that  tremendous  chasm  there  is  still 
Religion,  accessible  to  you  in  all  its  blessings  of  de- 
liverance, peace,  and  security  for  hereafter.  You 
are  still  on  that  favoured  ground,  where  you  are  in- 
vited by  a  God  of  mercy,  a  Redeemer  with  his 
atoning  sacrifice,  a  Divine  Spirit  with  all  powers  and 
operations  of  assistance,  to  enter  yet  at  last  into  the 
possession  of  that,  which  will  be  a  glorious  portion 
when  all  you  have  been  striving  with  the  world  to 
gain  will  vanish  in  dust  and  smoke.  But  be  warn- 
ed again,  that  the  time  is  passing,  and  a  very  short 
persistence  in  your  folly  may  make  it  too  late. 

Shall  we,  in  concluding,  suppose  that  some  of  you 
may  be  disposed  to  answer  these  exhortations  in 
some  such  manner  as  this  ?  "  But  what  can  we  do  ^ 
We  cannot  make  ourselves  religious.  Though  we 
should  admit  that  all  this  is  true,  and  of  the  last  im- 
portance, we  cannot,  for  that,  command  and  compel 
our  dispositions,  our  affections,  the  settled  habitude 
of  our  minds,  to  change  into  the  new  order  required. 


OF  RELIGION.  167 

What  can  we  do  ?"     The  answer  to  this  should  be 
appropriate  to  the  temper  in  which  it  is  spoken.     We 
have  heard  of  instances  of  expressions  like  these  be- 
ing uttered  evidently  in  a  spirit  of  impious  and  des- 
perate   carlessness.      There    was    no    real  concern 
about  the  subject ;  but  a  determined  addiction  to  the 
world,  and  to  so  much  of  sin  as  that  should  involve, 
a  wilful  avoidance  of  reflection,  a  stupid  and  diifying 
indifference  to   consequences  ;  and  all  this  taking  to 
itself  an   excuse,  or  almost  a  justification,  from  the 
moral   impotence  of  our  na'ure.     The   man  was  in 
eflfect  saying.  As  I  am  resolved  to  pursue  my  course, 
it  were  a  satisfaction  to  believe,  and   T   will  believe, 
that  1  could  do  no  otherwise  ;  and  as  I  am  to  fulfil 
my  destiny,  the   less  I  trouble  myself  with  thinking 
about  it  the   better.     Now,  to  a  person  who  should 
reply  to  religious   admonitions  in   this  disposition  of 
mind,  we  should  deem  it  utterly  trifling  and  useless 
to  offer  any  pleading  of  speculatively  theological  or 
of  metaphysical   argument.     The    reasoning   faculty 
of  such  a  man  is  a  wretched  slave,  that  will  not,  and 
dare  not,  listen  to  one  word  in  presence   and  in  con- 
travention of  his  passions  and   will.     The  only  thing 
there  would  be  any  sense  in  attempting  would  be,  to 
press  on  him  some  strong  images  of  the  horror  of 
such  a  deliberate  self-consignment  to  destruction,  and 
of  the  monstrous  enormity  of  taking  a  kind  of  com- 
fort  in   his  approach    to  the   pit,    from  the  circum- 
stance that  a  principle  in  his  nature  leads  him  to  it ; 
just  as  if,  because  there  is  that  in  him  which  impels 
him  to  perdition,  it  would  therefore  not  be  he  that 


168  THE    IMPORTANCE 

will  perish.     Till  some  awful  blast  smite  on  his  fears, 
his  reason  and  conscience  will  be  unavailing. 

If  he  be  guarded  on  the  side  of  his  fears,  by  en- 
tertaining a  light  opinion  of  that  consequence  on 
which  he  is  so  precipitating  himself  j  should  he  say, 
that  it  certainly  would  be  a  dreadful  thing  thus  reso- 
lutely to  go  forward  torward  it,  and  a  flagrantly  ab- 
surd one  thus  to  satisfy  himself  in  doing  so,  if  he 
had  any  such  appalling  estimate  of  that  future  ruia 
as  religious  doctrine  affects  to  enforce  ;  but  that  he 
believes  this  threatening  to  be  a  prodigious  exag- 
geration ; — we  have  only  to  reply,  that,  as  he  has 
not  yet  seen  the  world  of  retribution,  he  is  to  take 
his  estimate  of  its  awards  from  the  declarations  of 
Him  who  knows  what  they  are,  and  that  it  is  at  his 
peril  he  assumes  to  entertain  any  other. — If  any  one 
answer  to  this,  that  he  does  not  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  any  such  declaration,  he  is  not  one  of  the 
persons  we  are  meaning  to  address. 

But  some  of  you  will  make  the  supposed  reply, 
"  What  can  we  do  .^"  in  a  less  depraved  temper  of 
feeling.  We  will  suppose,  that  you  are  not  quite 
indifferent  on  the  subject,  that  you  seriously  admit 
the  necessity  of  religion,  that  you  feel  some  uneasi- 
ness at  your  estrangement  from  it,  that,  in  short, 
you  wish  you  could  be  religious,  and  in  this  spirit 
somewhat  despondingly  put  the  question.  For  you 
we  have  a  plain  short  answer ; — indeed,  we  have  an- 
ticipated Jthis  in  some  preceding  part  of  the  dis- 
course. You  can  deliberately  apply  yourselves  to  a 
serious,  honest,  prolonged,  repeated  consideration  of 


OF    RELIGION.  169 

the  subject.  Do  not  incur  the  shame,  for  one  mo- 
ment, of  pretending  to  doubt  whether  you  can  do  this. 
On  any  one  of  your  worldly  matters  of  importance, 
you  know  that  you  can  fix  your  thoughts,  attentively, 
long,  and  again ;  you  can  severely  examine  in  what 
manner  it  is  connected  with  your  interests,  can  weigh 
the  reasons  for  and  against,  and  look  forward  to  near 
and  more  distant  consequences.  And  you  can  do 
all  this  with  respect  to  religion.  Do  you  allege  that, 
the  subject  being  a  strange  and  hitherto  foreign  one 
to  your  thoughts,  and  also  presenting  itself  to  you 
with  a  disquieting  and  reproachful  aspect,  your  minds 
are  strongly  inclined  to  escape  from  beholding  it.'^ 
What  then  ?  You  can  think  again  of  the  absolute 
necessity  of  considering  it,  and  can  compel  them 
back  to  confront  it  once  more,  and  still  again.  You 
can  recollect  that  nothing  will  be  gained,  and  all  will 
be  lost,  by  ceasing  to  think  of  it.  You  can  reflect 
that,  if  you  dismiss  it  now,  because  it  does  not  please 
you,  it  will  infallibly  return  upon  you  ere  long  to 
please  you  still  less  ;  and  will  return  ultimately  in 
such  imperative  force,  that  it  can  no  more  be  evad- 
ed or  dismissed. 

Perhaps  there  may  be  some  of  you  who  will  com- 
plain, that  notwithstanding  sincere  and  considerable 
efforts  to  this  purpose,  you  find  that  the  subject  does 
not,  and  seems  as  if  it  would  not,  take  effectual  hold 
on  your  spirits  ;  that  you  cannot /eeZ  it  to  have  that 
importance  which  you  Jcnotv  it  to  have.  And  what 
then  f  Again  we  reply.  Are  you  going  to  m.ake  this 
15 


170  THE     IMPORTANCE 

a  reason  for  "suffering  your  minds  to  withdraw  from 
the  subject  and  let  it  go, — the  subject  which  cannot 
go  without  abandoning  you  to  the  dominion  of 
death  ?  The  question  whether  to  yield  to  this  ob- 
stinate defect  of  sensibility,  is  the  critical  point  of 
your  contest  with  the  deadly  power  of  evil,  within 
you  and  without  you.  Yield,  and  all  will  hasten  to 
ruin.  But,  surely,  the  terror  of  such  a  hazard  and 
such  an  alternative,  or  the  clear  conviction  at  least 
iliat  you  ought  to  feel  terror  at  it,  must  incite  you 
to  persevering  and  more  earnest  efforts.  Look  at  it, 
dwell  on  it,  and  see  whether  a  more  protracted  and 
intense  consideration  of  it  will  cause  or  suffer  your 
resolution  to  remit.  That  it  should  so  remit,  is 
hardly  conceivable  of  any  rational  being.  But  if  it 
even  did  so  remit,  that  circumstance  itself  would 
bring  a  new  and  frightful  phenomenon  to  rouse  the 
spirit  which  had  such  a  consciousness,  and  excite  it 
to  call  for  all  compassionate  powers  and  agencies  to 
come  to  its  rescue. 

And  here  you  are  to  be  admonished,  that  you 
cannot  feel  that  you  are  faithfully  making  the  re- 
quired exertion,  unless  you  have  recourse  to  the 
most  approved  means  for  rendering  it  effectiral.  You 
cannot  answer  it  to  God  or  your  conscience,  that 
vou  are  doing  justice  to  your  souls,  in  this  their 
dangerous  crisis,  unless  you  have  the  resolution  to 
withdraw  yourselves  as  much  as  possible  from  tri. 
fling  company  ;  to  seize  from  your  secular  occupa- 
tions some  portion  of  your  time  for  solemn  thought  ; 
10  foreoro  some   recreations,  not   perhaps   sinful    in 


OF     RELIGION.  171 

themselves,  for  the  sake  of  employing  the  time  on  the 
most  pressing  concern  in  all  existence  ;  to  read 
serious  books,  with  an  eft'ort  of  your  own  to  incul- 
cate their  instructions  on  your  minds;  and  read 
this  excellent  book,  *'  Doddridge's  Rise  and 
Progress  of  Religion  in  the  Soul,"  which  we 
commend  to  }  our  serious  and  thoughtful  perusal ; 
but  especially  converse  with  the  Word  of  Life  itself. 
And  there  is  yet  one  more  expedient,  of  obvious 
duty  and  practicability,  and  superlative  in  efficacy. 
You  believe  that  the  Almighty  admits  his  creatures 
and  indeed  has  with  endless  iteration  invited  and 
commanded  them,  to  express  their  necessities  in 
petitions  to  Him  ;  and  that  he  listens  with  peculiar 
favour,  to  applications  for  spiritual  good.  You  are 
not  afraid  to  do  this  ;  and  you  are  convinced,  on 
the  strength  of  innumerable  promises,  and  of  the 
merits  and  intercession  of  Christ,  that  it  would  be 
successful.  Though  there  did  not  appear  to  be  any 
immediate  success,  you  believe,  you  absolutely  know, 
that  perservering  application  to  Heaven  will  finally 
prevail.  You  can,  with  this  absolute  assurance,  im- 
plore the  removal  of  that  odious  insensibility,  that 
indisposition,  that  aversion  even,  which  you  allege 
as  a  discouragement  from  persisting  to  apply  your- 
selves to  the  all-important  subject,  and  feel  as  ^ 
temptation  to  turn  away  from  it.  This  can  be  done, 
a  thousand  times  over,  it  can  be  done  as  long  as 
the  evil  and  the  danger  continue.  And  each  day  of 
their  prolonged  continuance  supplies  a  stronger,  and 
still  stronger  motive,  to  a    more  earnest  use  of  the 


172  THE  IMPORtANCE 

sovereign  expedient.  And  again  and  again  we  tell 
you,  that  at  each  repetition  you  kvow^heca-use  God 
has  declared  it,  that  such  application  cannot  ulti- 
mately fail.  Let  this  be  done,  and  you  are  victori- 
ous.    And  O  is  it  not  worth  while  ! 

Now,  you  must  acknowledge,  that  this  is  what  you 
can  do.  But  what  !  are  we  about  to  use  a  language 
seeming  to  imply  that  you  are  reluctant  to  acknow- 
ledge it  ?  What  !  are  we  supposing  you  would  wish 
it  rather  proved  that  you  cannot  perform  this  simple, 
efficacious,  inestimable  service  to  your  immortal 
spirits  ?  Is  it  possible,  that,  because  the  process  of 
discipline  is  hard,  (it  is  confessedly  so,)  you  u'ould 
be  willing  to  find  in  its  impracticability  a  deliverance 
from  its  obligation, — at  the  cost,  the  inconceivable 
cost,  of  losing  its  great  object  ?  Is  your  professed 
thoughtfulness  on  the  subject  rather  employed  in 
trying  and  feeling  the  state  of  your  faculties,  to  veri- 
fy that  there  are  invincible  bonds  of  fate  around  you, 
than  in  seeking  the  intervention  of  that  hand  which 
can  break  all  the  bondage  off  ?  Beware  that,  while 
you  pretend  a  solicitude  for  your  eternal  welfare,  you 
be  not,  in  fact,  rather  seeking  to  make  a  melancholy 
provision  against  the  event  of  its  failure,  in  the  de- 
lusion of  finding  a  resource  of  extenuation  in  some 
mysterious  destiny,  or  the  determination  of  the 
Almighty. 

THE    END. 


\ 


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